


Here Comes the Spark Before the Dark

by cumberhardhiddlesbitch



Series: The Rhombus 'Verse [25]
Category: British Actor RPF
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Art Shows, F/M, Hand Jobs, Kissing, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Original Character(s), Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:27:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26057983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cumberhardhiddlesbitch/pseuds/cumberhardhiddlesbitch
Summary: Shannon and Ben meet to talk and spend time together as partners for the first time.
Relationships: Benedict Cumberbatch/Original Female Character(s), Benedict Cumberbatch/Tom Hardy, Tom Hardy/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Rhombus 'Verse [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/715134
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW for brief description of physical sensations of an anxiety attack in Ch 2.

Shannon woke with Tom's arm a warm steady weight around her. She lifted it gently, rolled over so she was facing him, the pattern of his breathing making her think that he was awake.

His eyes were half open, the dim light from around the curtains barely reflected there.

"Hey,” she whispered, tilted her head up to kiss him, her mouth closed and stale from sleep.

Tom held her tighter, kissing her back enthusiastically, mouth moving against hers as if he were seeking something, then slid off her lips entirely and made little chewing motions on her cheek.

She pushed him away gently and looked more closely. "You're not awake," she said softly.

The response was indistinct, but sounded like a protest that he was, in fact, awake.

"When did you come to bed?"

Tom opened his eyes and blinked a few times, moved his mouth and tried to make some intelligible answer. It sounded worryingly close to "one."

"Go back to sleep." She kissed him even as she pushed him away, sliding out from under his arm. She checked the alarm clock-- he'd set it for eight and it was only half six. Tom slept later than her often enough that she kept some of her things in her office, so she slipped into that room and pulled on her running kit in the dark and left as quietly as possible.

It had rained in the night, and the morning sun wasn’t quite enough to burn off the damp. The darker streets, still shaded by buildings, all had a low pale fog clinging to the pavement, suspended but heavy looking. She kept running towards it, never quite seeming to catch it.

The roads opened up, broader avenues near the park, and the haze dissipated as the sun rose, sky brighter every moment. When she'd left the house the prospect of seeing Ben had been heavy on her mind, but now there was nothing to think of but each footfall, the bend of spine and neck, starting to sweat under her light jacket but too cold once she had unzipped it. She had left everything at home but her house key, rattling around in the palm of her right mitten, nothing to estimate her time but how close the sun was to being in her eyes. When it was bright enough to leave spots in her vision she turned around, the thought of being late enough to spur her to move faster.

The back of her mouth tasted like salt by the time she got home, the stairs up to the living room the last hurdle to get over. The shower was running, a glance at the clock told her it was nearly eight.

"I'm back," she called as she walked past the bathroom on her way to her office.

"Come in," Tom called back.

She left her trainers and in the office and went back to the bathroom, standing outside the shower, watching Tom through the translucent curtain.

"You want me in there? I'm gross."

He pulled the back of the curtain open. "Get in."

She pulled her hair tie out, left her clothes in the hamper and stepped into the back of the tub. Tom was facing the spray, head tilted back, washing the shampoo off, but turned around quickly, holding her tight as he carefully spun them around, placing her under the warm water. He was warm and solid against her, no fear that they would slip and fall.

"You feel cold," he said as she tilted her head back, letting the water soak her hair.

"It’s warm outside,” she said. “Probably just my drying sweat.” She made a face even though he couldn’t see her. 

"Your arms are actually cold though.”

She tilted her head back more, let the warm water wash over her face. As the feeling came back to her nose she thought that maybe he was right.

"So warm me up then," she said, wiggling at him.

He shook his head. "Don't start something you can't finish,"

She sighed. "Fine. Do my back then." She turned around while Tom covered his hands in suds, leaned back while he smoothed them over her skin, scratching gently against her shoulder blades. She took advantage of the fact that her back was to him to angle her hips and let the water wash over her groin, using her hands to open herself up and guide the water. It puzzled her that she was happy to let him watch her rub herself off, had let him look at and kiss practically every inch of her, but she was still bashful about the prospect of him seeing her wash herself.

"Do you want me to do your hair?"

"Yes please." She straightened up and let the shower soak her hair, then stepped back a bit so he could work the shampoo in. "Do you want to get into the warm?"

"I'm alright."

She sighed happily as he started massaging her scalp, gathering up the hair from her temples and piling it on top of her head, sweeping his fingers over her forehead to keep the soap out of her eyes.

"Are you scent marking me?" she asked.

"What?" He tugged on her hair just a little, firm traction against the base of her skull as he worked the soap into the ends of her hair.

"For when I go to Ben's house," she said, amused. "Are you marking me with your scent, like an animal?"

"If I was I wouldn't be in the shower, now, would I?" He let her hair rest down against her back, reached around and rested the backs of his hands against her breasts as he rinsed them off.

"Except you used your shampoo."

He froze, then laughed. "I didn't notice. Here, rinse it out, I'll do it again."

It had a pleasant but masculine scent, all sandalwood and citrus. 

"Leave it, it's ok. I like it." She did turn around to rinse it out, though, leaving him free to cover his hands with body wash and rung them over her breasts.

She laughed when she realized that it was his body wash as well. 

"Committing to marking me?" she asked.

"It wouldn't match if I used yours." He kept running his hands over her breasts, squeezing tighter each time until he was blatantly pinching her, watching to see if she'd protest.

"Now who's starting something he can't finish," she asked, pushing his hands away.

He grinned. "I'll finish it alright. Just not until much later."

She rinsed off one more time and stepped out of the shower, Tom following close behind her.

"How are you getting to Ben's house?" he asked as she wrapped herself in a towel.

"I was thinking about riding my bike. Bus is pretty simple too."

"Just let me give you a lift."

They wound up getting dressed together, and she thought about what a typical weekday scene it looked like, though it was anything but-- Tom getting ready to go to a set and her ready to go to, well, Ben's house.

"It would be nice," she mused.

"So why not?" He was ready before her, shoving his feet into an old pair of trainers without unlacing them.

"My boyfriend giving me a lift to his boyfriend's house?" She shrugged as she started braiding her hair.

"I'd just be dropping you off, I haven't got time to go inside. Besides, if you take your bike you'll have to either leave it there or ride it to your studio, and by the time you're done there it'll be dark and you'll wind up with the bike stranded there."

 _Or I'll ride home in the dark_ she didn't say out loud. It wasn't safe, she knew, and the fact that she'd done it many times before wasn't really an excuse.

"Yeah, alright." She had her arms bent behind her head, working at her hair when Tom came to stand behind her, gently moving her hands out of the way.

"It's windy out. You should probably dry it."

"I'm just going to braid it." 

He undid the plait she'd already started. "You could dry it and then braid it. I don't want you catching cold."

"That's not how people catch colds," she pointed out.

"So you say. I could dry it for you. We've got time."

She twisted round to look at him. "Are you pimping me out here? What's next, are you going to do my makeup and choose my clothes for me?"

"You look absolutely lovely without makeup and your clothes are already very cute," he tried to reassure her.

"I was going for conservative, the trying not to do anything stupid look," she groused at him. She was wearing a long sleeve blue knit top and jeans, the simplest outfit she had donned in a while.

"Nothing you do will be stupid. I promise. Just let me dry your hair." He was already working his fingers through it. "You already accused me of scent marking you. Might as well let me groom you."

Shannon held still as he dried her hair and put it up, enjoying the firm but gentle traction on her scalp and his fingertips against the back of her neck. They were quiet as they gathered their things for the day, Tom settling Max in his crate just before they left.

“Will he be there until you get home?” Shannon asked. 

“No, the dog walker will be by early afternoon to take him out.” 

“Oh good. Have a good day, Max.” She smiled as the dog seemed to acknowledge her before turning back to his chew toy. 

“He always has a good day.” Tom put his hand on her lower back as they went out the door. 

Tom stopped on a double yellow line outside of Ben's house, the street quiet enough that it didn't really matter.

"I'll be home late tonight," Tom said as she gathered her jacket and her purse.

"I might take a cab home if it's after dark when I leave the studio," she said.

Tom touched her arm, making her pause and look at him. "Please do."

She nodded. "Alright, I will." She leaned over and kissed him, lingered as he set his hand on the back of her head. Her braid was looser than it would have been had she plaited it wet, and she had to admit that it was prettier, less severe looking that way, though she believed him when he'd told her he wasn't actually doing it on purpose.

The fluttery feeling in her chest had started up again as they'd approached Ben's house, but she tried to soothe herself with the thought that she'd been here before. Ben was just another good friend.

"You know, I wasn't this nervous when I was coming here to watch the two of you," she admitted.

Tom kept holding the back of her head as he rested his forehead against hers. "Just breakfast with a friend, right?"

"Right." She kissed him again, quickly, and got out of the car.

Ben was waiting to open the door for her, waved at Tom as he drove away. 

"Welcome back," Ben said as she slipped off her shoes by the door.

"Thanks." She hesitated for a moment before stepping closer to him as he opened his arms. As he folded her into a hug she was struck by how tall he was, the side of her face resting against the top of his arm. As they separated she looked past him towards the more open part of the room, and he took her cue, walked towards the kitchen.

"I wasn't sure if you wanted tea or coffee," he said as they entered the kitchen. 

"I actually prefer coffee in the morning," she said. "No apologies."

Ben laughed softly. "Who ever gave you a hard time about that?"

"Mostly just my step-sisters. They're from Ireland though, so I don't know."

Ben paused as he took down a French press from a cupboard, glancing at her over his shoulder. “I confess I forgot you had step sisters.”

"I forgot I never actually gave you the Cliffs Notes version that Tom got on our first date.”

“Did you draw him a family tree?” Ben asked as he measured out the coffee. 

“Not quite, though it would hardly have felt out of place, it was a very expository meeting.” She leaned against the worktop, watching him. “I love a French press,” she commented as he set the top in place.

“It definitely makes me look like I know what I’m doing. Other than that I didn’t prepare much. I went out for everything." He laughed as she looked at the countertop behind him.

"Yeah, I can see that." There were packages of granola and a pot of yoghurt, and two croissants on a plate with a tiny jar of jam next to them. "Please tell me that you cut the grapefruit in half yourself."

"I did, and I think you'll be very impressed at my grapefruit cutting abilities," Ben said, holding one half of a grapefruit out to her in a small bowl. She sat down at the table with it, looked closer and realized that the glass bowl had an impression along the inside that held the grapefruit steady and looked like the segments.

"I'm sure I will be. You don't cook, but you've got a grapefruit bowl." She accepted the serrated spoon that he handed her, poked at a segment as he set the rest of the food on the table. "And a grapefruit spoon." The segments had already been loosed from the pith.

"I like grapefruit. And I do cook, but eggs just seemed fussy if you were coming over to talk, and I can't ever get all the parts of a full English onto a plate in time for them to be hot.”

"It's a challenge," she acknowledged, glad when he started eating. She was actually hungry, the desire for food and coffee crowding out some of the nerves. Maybe that was why people usually met over food, she thought. 

"There's sugar," he said after she'd already eaten a few segments, speaking around his own mouthful.

"I don't take sugar on my fruit. Or in coffee." She turned the spoon over in her hands, the sun glinting off it the way light only really ever moved over real silver. "I used to refer to this as a runcible spoon," she said. "When someone told me that Edward Lear invented the word, I refused to believe them."

"Why did you think a grapefruit spoon was runcible?" Ben asked.

"We had a book that had The Owl and the Pussycat in it, and when I asked my dad what a runcible spoon was he told me that it was a spoon that did more than one thing. Like the grapefruit spoons that have a cutting edge, or the spoon with tines."

"A spork."

She retrieved another perfect segment of fruit. "Runcible spoon sounds so much fancier though."

"Is it an adjective that can describe something other than a spoon?" Ben captured the last bit of his fruit only to have it nearly fall off the spoon as he brought it to his mouth. Rather than let it go, he wound up chasing it as it fell, tucking it into his mouth with the side of his hand, trying to demurely lick the juice off his lower lip.

"Oh yes, anything with obvious dual uses in one object. Like a brush in a travel kit that also has a mirror on the back of it."

"A Swiss Army knife?" He finished pushing the top of the French press down, and poured a cup, pushing it towards her.

"A Swiss Army knife is very runcible." She stretched her feet out in front of herself, bumped into Ben's leg, or foot, and folded her legs back under her own chair as she wrapped her hands around the mug.

Ben smiled, shaking his head. "I didn't realize that there were varying degrees of runcibility."

"Naturally." She set the spoon down inside the empty grapefruit skin and Ben took the bowl away, leaving the small plate underneath, simply leaning back again to set it out of the way behind himself on the counter top. "You didn't really ask me here to discuss 19th Century neologisms, though, did you?"

Ben laughed as he settled back in his chair. "You make me sound like a Bond villain." He took a croissant from the plate, then offered the remaining one to her. She took it, accepting the little pot of strawberry preserves when he held both it and the black currant out to her.

"Would a Bond villain offer me my choice of jam?" She opened the pot and scooped a bit out on to her knife, tearing the crisp horn off the croissant.

"They can be very charming," Ben demurred.

She considered that as she chewed, delighted with the texture of the pastry. “Do you want to be a Bond villain?"

"If it was the right Bond villain. I wouldn't be just any villain."

He had the look of someone deflecting, and she let it go.

"I asked you to come here because I didn't want to have to wait to see you again." He looked right at her, his hands resting still on the table.

"Right. Thanks." She bit her lip as she tried to think of what to say, how to explain that she wasn't thanking him for the compliment, but for the fact that she hadn't wanted to wait either, actually bit down too hard and tasted salt, tried to wash it away with the coffee, finally looking away from him. "I didn't want to have to wait either." She looked at him again, found him to be the picture of patient expectation, his lips just slightly parted as if he was on the verge of speech, but willing to wait. His shirt was undone to the first button, the corners of his collar soft but the fabric still rich enough that it held its shape, framed the notch of his throat just so. She let her gaze drift to his skin, remembered with a sudden jolt of heat what he looked like with his head thrown back, the contours of his throat all shades of damp blush instead of the cool paleness that he seemed to exude, now.

"If I waited a day or two, would it go away," she asked. "The thing is, I don't want it to go away." She tore off another piece of the croissant, looked at the jam as she spread it rather than at him. There was an expression she'd always hated that popped into her mind, and she pushed it away. She wasn't the one who had literally shown her ass, she figured.

"I think I know what you mean." Ben was resting the tips of his fingers against the edge of the plate, tipping it up and letting it fall so it hit the table with a high-pitched tap. He did it twice, then pulled his hands away. "It's a bit precarious."

She washed the sticky bite down with the coffee, cooling now, bitter in comparison to the sweetness of the jam. "It's odd for us to be talking about this, isn't it? I think the done thing is not to acknowledge any of that. Aren't we supposed to be posturing like we're both really confident about everything?"

Ben shrugged broadly as he leaned back. "We might be, but that is just not going to work if you're with Tom."

"Is Tom some kind of human truth serum?"

"You might say." Ben was toying with his cup of coffee, rolling it along the edge of the bottom of the cup, passing it between the tips of his fingers as he worked it back and forth on the table. Predictably something went wrong, he lost his grip, the cup fell forward, and he jumped back far too late to avoid being splashed, the mug tumbling to the floor.

Shannon stood up, leaning forward reflexively. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, it was cool anyway," Ben said, holding the shirt away from himself. "Excuse me for a moment." He grabbed a tea towel from the handle of the stove, tried to blot off some of the coffee and sighed. "I'll be right back."

Shannon was left in the middle of the kitchen, not the first time she'd been alone in Ben's house, she realized. She found the paper towel roll under the sink and wiped up the coffee that was left around and on his chair, around his plate. After that was done she sat down and finished her croissant, drank the rest of her coffee, comfortable despite the strange conversation that had been interrupted by Ben's accident.

He returned in different clothes, jeans and a soft looking gray shirt with a deep cowl. He looked somehow more touchable in that outfit instead of the crisp shirt and trousers he'd been wearing, and she realized that they matched, now, textures the same, and wondered if it was the sartorial equivalent of mimicking someone else's gestures.

"I can't remember what's supposed to get coffee out," Ben said. "Vinegar?"

She thought for a moment. "I think vinegar sets colors in," she said. "Like with Easter eggs?"

"I threw everything into the tub and just soaked them." He sighed. "I should be less hopeless at this point."

"I think you've probably figured a few things out," she said.

Ben looked around the kitchen. "Did you want anything else? Yoghurt?"

"Not right now, thanks. I'm good."

Ben gathered up the food that was still on the table and put it in the fridge. "I've got a while until I have to go. Do you want to sit in the living room instead?"

"Yeah."

Ben took the corner of the sofa while Shannon made herself comfortable in the armchair. She smiled when she recognized the throw that had been in Ben's room now over the back of the chair.

"I was thinking while I was changing," Ben said. "I think this may seem awkward because we've got no frame of reference for it."

She curled her toes against the plush surface of the ottoman. "How could we? This isn't really usual." With the cowl folded around his neck his throat was covered but it was no less enticing for that, perhaps even moreso, hidden and warm. She thought about pushing the fabric aside, tracing the column of his neck, and realized that for all that they were embroiled in this hopelessly awkward conversation she didn't want him any less.

"If we weren't dating the same person, I wouldn't have seen you today,” Ben said. “I'd be sending you coy text messages and trying to figure out how to see you again."

"You could do," she suggested.

"It would feel artificial," he said. "We are with the same person."

"And if not for that you wouldn't even know me," Shannon pointed out. "Is that part of what you like about me, that I am with Tom?"

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Isn't that part of what you like about me?"

She considered it for a moment, thought about when they'd first met, how arrogant she'd found him. Part of that might have been the fact that he was a potential challenger for Tom's attention and time, but there was a part of her that had to acknowledge that he might just come off like that, full stop. The fact that he was with Tom, that Tom was able to see past that, made it easier for her to do the same.

"It's more that the fact that you're with Tom is what brought me to you. It's not what I like about you, personally. I like it when the three of us are together."

"I like that too." Ben held his hand out to her, even though she was too far away to touch. "Will you come sit next to me?"

She walked across the room and took his hand, let him guide her to sit beside him on the sofa, kept holding his hand, his fingers each distinct warm points against the back of her hand.

"What if you could have anything you wanted?" Ben asked.

"Like, anything?" She felt herself smiling as she enumerated. "Teleportation. The ability to make someone see something exactly the way I'm seeing it, literally, in that moment. The ability to be understood even if I'm talking nonsense."

"When do you talk nonsense?" Ben asked, playing along.

"If I said that an afternoon felt really orange, I'd like to be understood. By anyone, I mean. There are people who would get what that meant."

Ben tugged on her hand and turned her so she was sitting sideways on the sofa, facing him more fully. "That's not really what I meant," he admitted.

"I know. But I don't know how to answer the question that you're asking. What if I could do anything I wanted, like, kiss anyone I took a fancy to kiss, right?"

"Basically."

"I think that wanting something is different from being able to have it, really, truly," she said. Her other hand was worrying the edge of the sofa cushion, her thumbnail stuck in the groove of the stitching. With enough time and pressure she'd surely snap the stitches. Ben gently took that hand too, so she was held by both. "There are considerations to be made."

"Such as?"

"What if things go wrong, sour somehow."

"Do you always start everything thinking about its potential ending?"

She thought of stretching and tacking canvas down, not making a stockpile for later, but making one specific size, the finished painting already burning in the back of her mind, thought of being up at all hours framing, getting the bones of the thing down because the painting was there, in her mind, so close to being done if she only had the time. It was started with the end in mind. The fact that it rarely ended just as she'd imagined wasn't really the point.

"I do, a lot of the time," she said. "Don't make it sound like a bad thing. A director begins with the end in mind."

Ben shook his head, only slightly exasperated. "Are you always this literal?"

"I think I might be, actually. Do you not begin with the end in mind?"

"Not with people." He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it. "You're not a project or an experiment."

The word experiment struck a chord with her. "That's the thing. I've never tried anything like this before. What if I carry on, with both of you, and then I wind up losing," she took a breath. "Both of you." She'd almost said Tom. Ben, never having been more than a friend to this point, would have been a shame to lose, but the spectre of loss wasn't nearly as strong.

"You won't." Ben's response was immediate, and firm. "I know that you won't." The way he said it she suspected that Tom had told him something, made some declaration that he'd tacitly made to her many times.

"Ok. It also seems like a lot to keep track of, both you and Tom, I mean."

"We don't need you to keep track of us," Ben said, puzzled but not offended. "We can look after ourselves, or, I should say, depending on what job we're on there are a variety of people paid to keep track of us."

"And thank heaven for that. No, I wasn't thinking that you needed me to be a secretary to the two of you, because goodness knows I won't be volunteering for that. I mean it seems like it would be hard to keep track of the way you move in the world." She looked away from him, trying to gather her thoughts. "I'm not putting this well. I don't mean that you're away a lot. I mean, you can take other partners."

"So can Tom. So can you." He jostled her hands a little as he made his point.

"But you do. I don't." She almost said _I won't_ , but she realized at the last moment that it sounded too much like a judgment of what he did versus her.

"You could, though. That's all."

"You're actually looking for something, though," she said, trying not to skirt the issue, but not ready to confront him with the fact that Tom had told her about his search for a _wife._ No matter how much Ben protested to Tom that he was going to prioritize him over a future wife who wasn't herself polyamorous, Shannon found it an unlikely prospect.

"What I'm looking for right now is different from what I was looking for a year or six months ago," Ben said.

"Well, what is it then?" Shannon felt the difference between them keenly-- she was new, a traveler to this place that Tom and Ben had been living in for some time, so she was allowed to demand answers as to their customs. 

"I like the three of us when we're all together." He was pulling on her hands, slightly, might not even have known he was doing it.

"I like it too," she said, cautious. It hadn't happened often, but once she and Ben had gotten over their antagonistic phase, time spent with the both of them was comfortable, warm, conversation flowing amongst the three of them as it didn't even with just herself and Tom, who could be taciturn. 

"But?" Ben prompted her.

"It's not as if you wanted that as a, as a _thing_ before a couple of nights ago."

Ben shook his head slowly. "Both you and Tom seem to think that you can read my mind. Am I really that inscrutable?"

"How long, then?" She felt the heat climbing up her throat into her face, sure she was blushing. She'd stopped herself from flirting when the three of them were together, keeping her interactions with Ben friendly, and no more, even circumscribing her interactions with Tom, not wanting to make him the ground that she and Ben worked some kind of competition out on.

"Months. Before the new year, anyway."

She felt dizzy, thinking back, realized that she could have said the same, though she wouldn't have, considering a thing unsaid almost as good as something never felt. "So, this is what you want. The three of us."

He nodded. "What do you want, though?"

"I want you to know, I'm no one's mother, and I'm not going to be the answer to any or all of your problems." 

She expected him to pull his hands away, but he didn't. "I didn't expect you to be."

"And that's alright with you?"

"Yes. I told you what I want." Her wrists and hands were sweating underneath his fingers and he shifted his hands so he was cradling the backs of her hands in his palms.

"And if you change your mind six months, or a year from now?" She flexed her fingers, letting them curl up, an illusion of ease.

"I don't plan to. I also don't plan to live every day thinking about the possible bleak ending to everything I start."

"I'm not a pessimist, Ben," she protested. She shifted her arm and realized he wasn't holding her hands anymore-- she'd been resting them against his. "I'm not a skeptic and I'm not cynical. I just don't want to toy with you."

"You won't," he said, the word coming out choked, almost a laugh, but not. "How could you possibly be toying with me given everything you've said this morning? I don't think I've ever had a more explicit conversation."

"Ok." A feeling of peace settled over her, a light warmth under her ribs flaring up. What he was promising was what she wanted, what she had been wanting, but in the back of her mind, for some time. She lifted her right hand up and touched the side of his neck, just under his ear, where the cloth from his shirt was just barely folding away. She could feel his pulse, surprisingly steady given how fast her own seemed. He was as warm as she'd been imagining.

“There is one other thing,” Ben said, pulling away from her just a bit. “Before the conversation continues, I need to make something clear.”

“What’s that?” She sat up straighter, mimicking Ben’s posture, widening the space between them.

“You know that any of us can have other partners, but I’m the only one, so far, who has exercised that particular freedom.”

“Yes.” She found herself picking at the sofa again. “You told me about the couple you see. When Tom has mentioned it, in regards to himself or me, it still feels like an abstract idea.” Whenever she tried to imagine herself being interested in a person who wasn’t connected to both herself and Tom she came up blank, and when she tried to imagine Tom telling her he was interested in someone else she couldn’t see it, but felt a vague sense of unease at the idea.

“I think it is, when it comes to Tom, though he could surprise both of us,” Ben said. “He’d probably wind up surprising himself as well.”

“I think you’re right,” Shannon said. “But as for you, is there something else you need to tell me?”

“I do see other people, beyond the couple I already told you about. There have been times in the years that Tom and I were together that I would have a brief but potentially intense relationship with another person.”

“Did you always part as friends?” Shannon asked.

Ben smiled, his obvious apprehension melting away. “Yes, or at least as friendly acquaintances. Is that important to you?”

“It is, only in that I don’t want to think about you leaving a trail of devastated people in your wake. Did these people know about Tom?”

“They knew about him, but not his name or who he was. If they were too keen to try to figure out my private life, I considered them better left well alone, though that has happened but rarely.”

“The couple you told me about, though, they know Tom.”

“They do.” Ben nodded slowly. “The thing is, the time may come when you and Tom and I have to let more than our closest friends and family know. For you that would mean notoriety that you’d otherwise never have to deal with.”

She looked down, unable to hold his gaze. “I have thought of that, and I have to say, I’m quite comfortable remaining in denial about it.” When it had been only her and Tom, and Tom and Ben, it had seemed easier to deny that it would ever be an issue. Prior to getting to know Ben she had lived in the comfortable expectation that at some point he would find a partner willing to be his wife and be less of a presence in Tom’s life. Even though it had been months since her perception on that point had changed, she’d still not thought about the eventual reveal that would have to come, not only to friends and family but perhaps even to the world at large.

“You disappeared for a bit there,” Ben said. “How worried are you?”

“Honestly, I’m not all that worried, but it might be because I don’t know how worried I should be. I suppose there are people who will make my life difficult over some of this but I’ve never,” she paused. “I’ve never been so willing not to care what other people think, and I didn’t care all that much in the first place.”

“Well, good. So the thing about these people is that they will never, ever, be happy to be revealed as being connected to me in this way.” 

“I get it. So who is it? You’re killing me.”

“Martin Freeman and his partner Amanda Abbington.”

Shannon’s hands flew up to cover her mouth, hiding her sudden smile. “Oh my god Ben, I can see why you took your time telling me.” She tried to control her smile, not wanting him to think her interest or enthusiasm was prurient. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it,” she said as he continued to stare at her, incredulously. “Was it since you met him on Sherlock?”

“Yes. Why are you so,” he gestured to her, weakly, unable to describe what he meant. 

“Because this is all sort of adorable.”

“You don’t even know what I do with them,” he said. “How do you know it’s adorable?”

“I have a feeling.” She composed herself. “Are you really lost without your Boswell?”

“The line in this iteration is that Sherlock is lost without his blogger, and no, because I am not Sherlock and he is not Watson.”

“I know that.” She found herself chewing her lip as she thought about his warning that they might not be adorable. “So what do you do with them?”

“I’m not sure you need to know that part,” Ben said. “It’s not as though I describe the minutiae of the sex I’m having with Tom to them.”

“I don’t need minutiae,” she said. “It might be important for me to know, though. Is it something you can’t do with Tom?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Because Amanda’s a woman?”

“In part.” He shook his head. “I mean, yes, Amanda is wholly a woman, but that’s not,” he trailed off. 

“I’m asking because you asked me if I was comfortable with it. I know you and Tom engage in what I would consider a lot of really intense things. I’m not sure what it would be but I think there’s potential for there to be something about what you do with Martin and Amanda, in general, that would make me not comfortable with the entire thing. And I’m sorry about that, I really am, because I know it’s not my decision what you do when you’re not with me, and I know it doesn’t reflect poorly on your personality if you like something that I find frightening or degrading, but I didn’t even know I was going to be asked today, and I don’t know what my limits are in regards to what you do with other people when I’m not there. I don’t know what I don’t know. So if you can, I’d like to know, in generalities. It’s not because I’m only curious.”

“Alright.” He ran his hands down the front of his trousers, drying his palms off. “Firstly, Amanda and Martin both enjoy occasionally having another man present. We were friends, they trusted me, and I was willing and available. Since we all enjoyed ourselves a great deal, we decided to do it again.”

“Fair enough.”

“As for what I can’t get with Tom, you might have noticed he doesn’t switch.”

Shannon shook her head.

“He doesn’t submit.”

Shannon shrugged, surprised how appealing she found the idea even in the same moment Ben was declaring it a non-starter. “It didn’t occur to me to notice, because I never asked.”

“He’s tried for me, in the past, but his heart’s not in it.”

“But they do?”

“Martin does. And I’m only telling you this much because you mentioned being potentially put off if what I did with them was degrading. Martin does like, in the specific context of being dominated, to be degraded, a bit. In particular regarding me fucking his wife. Amanda doesn’t have any desire to be dominated or humiliated but she is a willing accomplice.”

“They sound fun. Do I get to meet them?”

“Socially, yes.”

She resisted the urge to swat at his arm. “I meant socially. I think they’ve got all they can handle otherwise.”

“You’re probably right.” He reached for her hand but she didn’t move towards him and he held still.

“Do you expect that of me?” she asked.

“Which?” he asked.

“Do you expect me to submit to you?”

He leaned forward a bit, his hand sliding towards hers on the back of the sofa. “I don’t. I do hope that at some point I will have earned your trust sufficient that we can talk about it, but it’s not on my mind for now. And of course at that point if you decide you want to try switching, yourself, that would be part of the conversation.”

She wondered if he’d been able to see what had felt like a tiny shiver. “Why of course?” she asked.

When he shrugged it looked more like a slow roll of his shoulders, as if he was easing back into his thoughts. “I enjoy both, so it seems easy to me to imagine that other people would enjoy both. That’s obviously not the case with Tom, for example, but I think people tend to imagine their own preferences are a default, to a point, or at least easy to imagine. And if you ever did find that you wanted to try domination, that’s a question entirely apart from whether or not you wanted to submit to me.”

“I hadn’t even thought to wonder, but I would have, later. Thanks for saying that.”

“When Tom and I got together years ago we were both a lot younger and we stumbled through some things that we might not have had to stumble through had we talked more.”

“That doesn’t sound pleasant.”

“We were both fairly resilient.” 

She looked at where his hand was along the back of the sofa and let her hand move closer, settling the back of her hand against his palm for a moment. He slid his hand against the back of her wrist, thumb brushing against the soft skin near the join of her palm.

“I’m fairly resilient too,” she said. “All the same, thanks for being careful with me.”

“So, that was it,” he said. “That was all I had to tell you, really.”

“And I’m alright with all of it.”

“So, shall we?” He shifted a bit, leaning towards her, closing the space he’d put between them earlier.

“Yes.” She tilted forward too, almost kneeling, hand holding his for balance.

Ben leaned forward and kissed her, still cradling her left hand in his, his right hand settling on the small of her back, barely pushing her forward. She didn't have to be pushed, leaned into him, opening her mouth up as she let her fingers trace along the side of his neck. He shivered, twitched away from her, tickled, or scratched, but put both of his hands on her waist a moment later, thumbs rubbing against her skin through the shirt.

It felt easy, none of the nervousness she'd had when she'd first been with Tom, as if Ben was just another side of the same coin. That wasn't fair, her mind supplied even as she was busy turning her head, adjusting herself on the sofa, responding to him, but it felt as if it were true, even though they were very different people.

Ben tried to look at her for a moment, eyes crossing as she was too close. She sat back reluctantly.

"Should we tell Tom?" She hadn't meant to ask; it just came out.

"Of course." Ben looked shocked, as if she'd been suggesting that they keep it from him entirely.

"No, I mean, right now."

"Aha." Ben slumped, relieved. "Well, he's working. I suppose I could text him, if you want to satisfy his curiosity so quickly."

"BRB, snogging your girlfriend," Shannon suggested.

"LOL, snogging our girlfriend."

Shannon turned her face down, trying to hide the sudden smile, ridiculously pleased to hear him refer to her as such. "Glad to know I'd inspire such mirth."

"LOL is more or less a useless placeholder, by now," Ben said. "Then again, my mother signs all her e-mails LOL. She thinks it stands for lots of love."

Shannon let herself lean in to him, forehead resting against his shoulder. "I'm sure he can wait until I see him tonight to find out. Or until you see him, if it's before me."

"It'll be you." Ben rested his hand over the nape of her neck. "I don't even know if I'll see him before I go away."

"I'll need some kind of calendar to keep your schedules straight," she said.

"You already need one, with Tom," he said. "Hopefully I'll make it easier, not harder."

"Don't worry about me. I like my time alone, too. And I travel a fair amount myself." She sat up and stretched, unable to resist one more kiss before she shifted further back, the easier to look at him. "We'll have to sit down, the three of us, and figure some things out." She touched the front of her throat, a sudden fleeting feeling of anxiety settling there.

"Like what?" Ben ran his fingers through his hair, the curls over his forehead entirely unruly now.

"Like who we can tell about this, for starters," she said. "I'm sure other things will present themselves."

"I know that Tom and I have been very circumspect," he said.

"I have been as well. My family knows I'm dating Tom, but I haven't told anyone that he has a boyfriend. Some friends know that he has a male partner, but I haven't said who. Though I think one friend suspects."

"How did that happen?"

"Edward met Tom the same night I met him, and he's a bit of a fan. Then Tom told me about you the next day, though not who you were, and then left for the US for basically months. Edward was tired of seeing me mope and brought over pretty much everything Tom had ever done that was to be had on DVD, figuring that would cheer me up, and if not me, then at least him. So Edward, being a completist, insisted we watch the extras." She paused. "Care to hazard a guess?"

"It has to be something from Stuart."

"And that would be?"

Ben groaned and rubbed his forehead, pinching his eyebrows together. "The bismarking interview?"

"Got it."

"We assumed everyone would think it was a joke." He kept his head in his hand.

"Everyone else did," she said. "I didn't say anything but I may have come a little unglued realizing that Ben was you."

Ben looked up. "He referred to me as Ben?"

She nodded, smug. "I think he figured it would keep him from accidentally saying the wrong name."

"Oh yes, very sly."

Ben tightened his arm around her shoulders. "I've got to leave soon," he said. "I've got a table read."

"I should be going too. I'm working on a commission."

"Yeah? What kind of thing is it?"

"It's a painting. I don't really do anything else professionally. If I dabble in something else it's a hobby. Someone was disappointed that Tom had bought the wings painting, and got in touch to commission something similar."

"Did they ask for a copy?"

She shook her head, settling into his embrace despite his warning that they had to leave soon. "No, happily she was smarter than that. But I've got a sense of urgency to keep working on it." She stretched her back, pushing her shoulders into the sofa above Ben's arm, looked over to see him openly looking at her chest. "Will I get to see you before you've gone away again?"

"I'll call you tonight. Or I'll text you. If it's not too late, can I come over?"

"Even if it seems too late, just text. If I'm up I'll let you in for sure." She brought her feet up on to the edge of the couch, under the cushions, leaning into his chest as he wrapped both his arms around her.

"It's a bit of rubbish timing," he said, chin resting on the top of her head.

"Probably the best timing available, given how busy we all are."

"True. And very kind." He kissed her head and was still, and she let the silence stretch around them like a comfortable blanket, leaving it up to him to tell her when they had to go.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shannon works in her studio and has a visit from Edward. TW for brief depiction of anxiety/anxiety attack.

Ben had wanted to take his motorcycle across the city to her studio, but she'd declined, citing the fact that really, she'd never in her life been on the back of a bike, and also she had a fairly large bag with her to boot. He'd dropped her off in his car, leaning over to kiss her goodbye at the curb. She'd gotten to work almost immediately, a glass of water from the kitchen the only distraction. The canvas was huge, a five foot square, with a large field of turgid sea and another equal area of overcast but unsettled sky. She'd gotten to work on the waves and she found herself stepping back, nearly satisfied, only to find that it was growing dark outside. She reached for her water, nearly untouched, and drank, feeling shaky. It wasn't often that she actually found herself inside that state that some people referred to as flow, going along on a piece of work without being aware of the passage of time. When it happened it was wonderful, despite the potential for dehydration. She finished the water and went into the kitchen, flipping on a couple of the lights clamped to ladders as she went, bathing the space in a warm incandescent glow.

She felt shaky but not actually hungry, though she recognized the connection. She made a packet of quick oats and a cup of tea, then sat on the sofa with the food set out on a crate.

Thoughts of Ben returned as she set up her little dining area, followed by thoughts of talking to Tom about them, about the three of them, really. She thought about telling her friends, felt only a frisson of anxiety at that, nothing more than the slightest case of nerves. She stirred the oats and brought the spoon to her mouth, then found, suddenly, that she couldn't swallow them.

She grimaced and tried again, not wanting to spit them out into the bowl. Her throat clicked, behind her tongue, and she ran into the kitchen and spat them into the sink, her head hanging low into it to try to minimize the amount of mess she made. She wiped them up with a paper towel, rinsed the residue down the drain, and drank a sip of water. Alright, fine, she thought to herself. No oats then. Swallowing the water seemed difficult too, though, her tongue thick in the back of her mouth. She ran to the changing alcove at the end of the kitchen, opened her mouth wide as she looked into the mirror. It didn't look any different, but the feeling of her throat and even the back of her nose being full didn't go away.

"It's ok. You're ok." She said the words out loud, to reassure herself that she could still speak, that her throat was open enough for that, at least, but her voice was hoarse. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, holding it in her hand for a moment as she decided what to do. Her thumb had dialed Edward before she'd even thought of it.

"Hey Shannon. What's up?"

"Hey Edward." Her voice still sounded rough to her, as if she'd been crying. "I'm in the studio. Where are you?"

"Just leaving work. I've got about an hour to kill. You want some food?"

"That thing is happening again," she blurted out.

"That, my throat is closing up, only, not really, thing?" 

"Yeah, that thing." She sat down on the floor, feeling dizzy. "I feel like I'm dying."

"You've never died of this before, you're not going to die today." There was a rustling noise as he spoke that she couldn't quite place. He sounded fond, a little exasperated. It was soothing. Surely if she was going to die he would sound concerned. "I'm bringing you some food. I've got the Vespa, I'll be there in five minutes."

"I'll try to hold on," she said, her tone sarcastic but the words feeling all too real.

"Put your head between your knees. Even better, get into child pose and just stay there until I come up."

"It won't help," she grumbled, but got on to her knees and leaned forward anyway, curling up into a ball.

"We'll see. I'll ring you when I'm outside."

With her face on her forearms her back was bowed up, opening up the space that she had to breathe. She had to admit that she seemed to be breathing easier, even though her face was curled back towards her chest, the air she took in warmer than the room.

Her phone rang and she sat up slowly as she answered. "Gimme a minute. I've only made it up to lotus."

"Take your time. I don't want you head-rushing out on me."

"Right. I'll be right there." She stood up slowly, tried to swallow, got the same clicking sensation in her throat, but with Edward nearby it wasn't nearly as frightening. She went down the stairs with her hands on both railings, though, the unsteady feeling still with her.

"Well you look right as rain," Edward said as she opened the door.

"Whatever. I put up a good front," she said as she climbed up ahead of him, using just one railing now.

"That you do."

Once in the studio he went straight to the kitchen and started unpacking his knapsack, opening a clamshell case of fresh greens and adding things from various smaller containers to two plates while she watched from the sofa.

"I'm not kidding, I really did feel like hell," she protested.

"I know you did." Edward brought over the salads, nudging the now congealed bowl of oats out of the way. "What did you eat today besides whatever that mess is?"

"That's porridge, and I didn't actually eat any of it. I ate half a grapefruit and a croissant with preserves. And a coffee."

"When?"

She thought for a moment. "Around ten."

"Eight hours ago you ate a croissant and then worked all day and you wonder why you felt like hell?"

She picked over the salad. Edward had added tiny orange segments and dried cranberries as well as some grilled chicken. She pushed the meat out of the way and speared an orange segment. "I didn't feel _hungry_ , Edward, I felt like my throat was closing up."

"I'm sure running on fumes had nothing to do with that." He spoke around his own mouthful of greens.

"Seriously, is this your thing now? You go to work in the city and all of a sudden you’re a model adult? I remember when you lived on cigarettes, Ribena, and ritalin."

He pointed the fork at her. "Those days are behind me. And may I remind you, you weren't that much better."

"I wasn't on pills," she pointed out. She tried a piece of chicken, still had to swallow hard to get it to go down, but it was an improvement.

"What has you nerved up this time?"

"I wasn't." His silence was punctuated only by chewing. "I wasn't, really. Not enough to induce a faux-anaphylactic episode."

"But there was something. Was it about Tom?" When she shrugged he pressed on. "Was it something to do with Tom and his boyfriend?"

She nodded, feeling herself go all over giddy with the prospect of telling him, only this time it was with the expectation of relief. "I'm with his boyfriend now, too."

Edward waited until he'd swallowed to speak. "When did that happen?"

She arranged another bite on her fork. "About ten this morning."

"Yeah, I'm beginning to see why you might have been a little freaked out this afternoon."

"It wasn't really all that connected, though, it just sort of came out of nowhere."

"Keep telling yourself that," Edward said, not unkindly. He set his plate down and went back to the kitchen to get a glass of water. "So, how did it start?"

"Well, I'd told you that Ben had been spending some time with us," she said. "And the last few times I saw him I realized, I was really beginning to like him, as a friend."

"You already have something in common," Edward supplied.

"Ha ha." She ate another bite, feeling obstinate, making him wait as he sat back down. "Then about two weeks ago I asked Tom if I could watch them together."

Edward sputtered around the mouthful of water he'd just taken, barely managing to hold on to it. "Wow. Listen. You need to know that I'm happy for you, but there is a significant amount of envy here as well."

"I know." She thumped on his back gently as he coughed some more. "So, they both agreed, and two evenings ago we went to Ben's house and um. I watched them."

Edward set his plate down and leaned back against the cushion. "Wow. Ok. I knew you were going to say that but still." He rolled his head towards her. "I mean, seriously. How is your life real right now?"

"I don't know." She kept eating, grateful that he hadn't picked up on the unspoken truth of what, exactly, she'd watched. "So, afterwards, I was tired, and I wound up curled up in bed with him."

"With Ben?"

"Yeah."

"Where was Tom then?"

"He was sitting in a chair next to the bed, reading. I actually fell asleep for a while."

"So, you were just sleeping next to him?" Edward resumed eating.

"We had a bit of a cudge. And he kissed me goodnight before I left."

"And Tom?"

"I think he's just happy that we get on. And he probably had an inkling of what was going on far before I did." She took a few bites herself, savoring the last few moments when Edward wouldn't know precisely who Ben was. "Then yesterday I couldn't stop thinking about Ben. I mean, I had thought about him like that, before, but it was more abstract. It was more, oh, wouldn't that be perfect, in a way. And he's attractive, and there are things about him I like that are different from Tom, too. So I told Tom, and this morning he brought me to Ben's house. And after laying out every reason why we shouldn't--”

"That doesn't sound like you," he interjected.

"Shut up. After giving Ben some very good, thoughtful considerations, we decided to. Um. Go for it."

"So that was what you were thinking about when you started having your spell?"

She swatted at his arm. "You make me sound like a Tennessee Williams character."

"Your episode then, if you prefer."

"Sort of. I was thinking about telling my friends about this. That felt ok. I don't think anyone is going to be nasty about it."

"They're going to be intrigued, is all," Edward suggested.

"You have no idea. Then I was sort of thinking about having to tell my mother." She put the plate down, the hot feeling of fear coming over her again.

"No, do not think about that right now. You can deal with that later." When Edward touched the side of her face his hand felt cool. "Not right now, ok?"

"Ok." It came out as a whisper, and she reached for her tea, gone cold now, trying to get rid of the closed feeling in her throat. "Well, I might have unraveled half the mystery."

"Yeah, some mystery. Thinking about your mother gives you anxiety. I'll alert the media."

She kicked at him, missing by a good margin.

"You said I'd have no idea how intrigued your friends are going to be," Edward prompted.

"You already have an idea why. Ben is Benedict Cumberbatch."

Edward actually jumped up. "I knew it! I knew it. And I didn't even ask you. Are you proud of me?"

"For your restraint? Yes, Edward, I'm very proud."

"Sorry." He sat back down. "In all seriousness that does add another layer of complexity to the whole thing."

"No shit." She suddenly saw herself through his eyes, put her forehead in her hands and rested her elbows on her knees. "I look ridiculous. This is ridiculous."

"I said it was complex, not ridiculous." Edward touched her back tentatively, then more firmly when she didn't shrug him off, rubbing his hand up and down her back. "You're not ridiculous."

"I'm an ordinary woman with two boyfriends, both of whom are well known actors."

"It's not like you're with Daniel Craig and, I don't know, Gary Oldman or something. They're still emerging. Like you."

She laughed into her hands. "Yeah, like me, only not at all. Imagine when they get more famous, because they will. I'll look like the strangest of hangers-on."

"You'll look like the person who they've chosen to be with. Nothing else."

She jumped up, the pressure of his hand suddenly too much. "Look at me, Edward, really truly look at me." She held her hands out, an approximation of the anatomical position, nothing like the way anyone would ever truly stand. "What would you see if you didn't know me?"

Edward opened his mouth but shut it after a warning look from her. "Alright. Let me see." He folded his hands behind his head. "That's your natural hair color, or else you've hired a really good colorist, unlikely considering your hair isn't styled, but your braid is cute. Very bohemian. You haven't shaped your eyebrows in a while, not that you need to, but if you did you should probably just open up the arch to accentuate your eyes. No make-up today, which is fine, since you have thick enough lashes to define your eyes and your complexion is good. You've been biting your lower lip, though, it's all chapped. Nice cheekbones. Nice overall proportion to your face, really. You're fit. High waist, good hips. You could probably pull off a mermaid style dress, though I don't know why anyone would want to." He squinted at her, tilted his head. "As for clothes I'd say that probably your bra is the most expensive thing you're wearing, unless it's your jeans. It's a good bra though, no lines, well done you. Anything else in that area is really not my forte.” 

"You don’t say. And go on."

"Right. Well, I can tell you're a painter, there's paint all over your hands, but you like these jeans enough that either you were wearing a smock today or you took them off while you were painting."

"Smock," she said, exasperated.

"And your socks don't match." 

She looked down. "They do too. They're both black."

"The left one is ribbed, the right one isn't."

"I'm just not a perfectionist like you, I guess."

"Turn around, I'm curious about something."

She sighed, but did as he asked.

"Aha, the orange tab Levis. How long have you had those?"

She let her arms fall to her sides and faced him again. "Since college."

"Today was a special day then. Or you just wanted your arse to look really good. Better than normal I should say. I'll stop talking now."

She smirked at him. "Probably wise."

"So what was so horrible that I was supposed to see?"

"Just how incredibly ordinary I am."

"But you're not," he protested.

"Look at this." She turned sideways, her arm hanging at her side. "I was looking at pictures of actresses. Paparazzi shots, not modeling shots, and they're all about two arms wide. My arm is bigger and I'm about three arms wide. I'm thick, compared to them."

"Oh my god, if you develop an eating disorder over this, I will freak out."

"I won't." She flopped back down on to the sofa, stabbed at her salad. "As you might recall, my cigarettes and Ribena phase didn't last very long."

"And you're not ordinary. You're beautiful."

"I'm not," she started.

"No, shut up, seriously. I know from beautiful, ok? All over this city women are getting up in the morning and doing their make-up and their hair just to have a shot at looking half as good as you do just rolling out of bed. You are beautiful."

"I'm not polished."

"That's hardly an innate trait. If you want to change something, you can."

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. "My hair, my make-up, my clothes. Oh lord, my clothes."

"Why didn't this hit you when you were just with Tom?"

She sighed deeply. "I don't know how to put this really, but even though he's rich, compared to me, anyway, and even though he had this really nice upbringing, he's not polished either, most of the time. I mean, he can be downright," she paused, looking for the word.

"Chavvy?"

"If you want to be rude. But Ben is just polished all the time."

"And he met you and was attracted to you when you weren't," Edward reminded her. "But if you want to change any of that, I know someone who can help you."

"You, you mean?" She smiled to herself. It did have some appeal.

"Please?"

"Make-up, yes. We're leaving my hair alone for now." She ran her hand down the braid. "I'm not ready to have it chopped yet."

"No one said anything about chopping."

"Not yet anyway." She chased the last of the chicken and oranges around her plate.

"What about your clothes?"

She sighed. "I'm not sure about those."

"Why not?" He brought his empty plate to the kitchen and started zipping up his pack.

"Most of the clothes I own, I've either had forever, or I've made them, or you've made them. They're part of me."

"You can add other parts," Edward said. "For when you need to feel polished. I like making clothes but I don't do business wear and all that well. You need some sleek blouses, a tulip skirt. Cigarette trousers. You look good in gray, that should be easy enough." He put the pack on his back. "All those actresses you're so intimidated by get their clothes tailored too, you know, or they're bespoke."

"I can't afford bespoke clothes," she pointed out.

"You couldn't afford bespoke clothes." He walked over to her canvas, looking at the waves she'd recently detailed. "You're getting commissions now, on top of your usual work. You can afford some clothes."

"I should be putting that away, not squandering it on clothes."

"I said you can afford some clothes, not all the clothes. Just get some good pieces, buy them a size larger, and get them tailored after the fact. Consider it an investment."

"I could do that." She stood up to let him out, but he only moved closer to the canvas. "Don't look at that, it's not done."

"But I've been looking, already." He pointed to the focal point of the picture, a winged man sitting on the edge of a rocky precipice over the ocean. "Did you use Tom as a model?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes. Something else I hadn't told you. Tom Hardy has gigantic six foot wings growing out of his back. It's a miracle he manages to get dressed at all."

"You know what I mean." The man was turned just so, only the curve of a hip and the top of a muscular thigh visible through the mass of feathers.

"The shoulders are similar, but really, we've all got the same bones."

"Ah, now there's a depressing thought. We've all got the same bones, but we don't all look like him, now, do we?"

"Would you want to?" she asked as she followed him down the stairs. "I mean, do you really want to look all hypermasculine all the time?"

Edward stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "Don't kid yourself. Tom Hardy looks amazing in drag." He closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were imagining it. "Now listen. Your friends will always love you, your dad will come around, and your mother is going to be pissed off no matter what you do, so you might as well be happy."

"Brilliant," she said softly.

"No, I'm serious."

"So was I." She was still standing a step above him, so she was able to lean forward and kiss his forehead. "Have a good night."

"You too." He let himself out, closing the door behind him. She heard the latch click shut as she ran up the stairs, fingers barely touching the rail.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Later that same day Shannon is at home, and Ben comes over.

Shannon stared into her closet, poking through the layers of fabric there. Some of the shirts were from her school days, the white linen still too good to throw away. She gathered them off the hangers and put them in the clothes hamper she had designated for donation. She'd worn them rarely over the last few years, but had to admit that they weren't flattering, not even in a retro menswear sort of way, as they demonstrably weren't menswear at all.

A handful of jumpers from the top shelf were carded through, then replaced on the shelf they'd come from. Jumpers that were handknit especially for her felt too precious to go to a charity shop, even if she didn't wear them. One had a stripe of blaze orange through the back of it, a paean to her grandmother's depression-era sensibility, though why she would have had that yarn in her stash in the first place was a mystery.

She sat on the edge of her bed with an armful of skirts. Easier to make than trousers, they'd been her mainstay during university, if for nothing other than the fact that it was cheaper to make another skirt when she craved new clothes than to go out and buy something. She examined the hems and seams, found them still strong. She set them to one side and curled up on the bed, mildly irritated with her own inertia at getting rid of anything, but also happy to be in her own space again. She'd spent enough time at Tom's house that when she woke in the night the sight of the walls of his room, the sight of him, felt like home, but this was different. This careworn space was still, for now, her own.

She pulled the quilt over her shoulders, well aware that she was likely to fall asleep, but not concerned. Tom had called when she was still in the studio to say that he had been held up on set, wouldn't be able to come and get her. She had decided then to take a cab to her own flat, both as it was closer and also as she had some cleaning out to do. Tom had already suggested that she move into his flat, but they hadn't had a proper conversation about it. Even so, her possessions could use some thinning out. 

She was slipping into a doze when her phone rang, and she groped about the folds of the quilt for it.

"Hello?"

"Sorry, did I wake you? I know I said I'd text but I thought it was early enough," Ben said.

"No, Ben, it's fine." She sat up a little bit, leaning against the pillows. "How are you?"

"Good. Long day but a good one. You sound tired."

"Just having a doze," she said. "I'm awake." She glanced at the clock. Only half nine, not really late enough to explain why she was so ready for sleep. "Where are you?"

"I'm just leaving White City. Are you up for a visit?"

"I am, but I'm in my flat, not Tom's." She sat up straighter. "I'm in Peckham. If you don't want to come that far, that's alright."

"You're in Peckham, not Portsmouth," Ben pointed out. "What's your address?"

She told him, trying to imagine his route. "It's still far," she protested.

"I'll be there in less than half an hour."

"Alright." After she hung up she realized she had never told him that she had flatmates. She flipped her phone around in her hands, then gave in and rang him back.

"Yes?" Ben sounded amused that she'd called back so quickly.

"Please tell me you have hands-free and I'm not contributing to you being another London statistic."

"Of course."

"I forgot to mention that I don't live alone. I have two housemates."

"Oh? Are they really awful or something?"

"I was thinking more of your privacy. They're not here right now but they could come back any time."

"Should I be worried about them, do you think?"

Shannon ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it off her face. "I don't think so. I mean, they've been discreet about Tom."

"Well that sounds alright. Be there in a few."

Shannon roamed the house, restless as a cat, straightening things that didn't really need straightening, checking on the real cat's food and litter. Texts to Sarah and Max went unanswered, and she wondered where they were, but didn't blame them for not leaving a note, as she'd been away more than she'd been home of late. She hid the evidence of her toss-down of her wardrobe, and wandered some more. She was sitting on the sofa, trying to read, when there was finally a knock at the door.

She forced herself to walk, rather than run to the door, throwing it open once she was sure it was Ben. 

“Hi.” She stepped back as he entered the narrow hallway.

“Hello.” He shut the door before turning to her, engulfing her in a hug as she stepped into his arms. “Is it strange to say that I missed you today?”

“Not at all. I missed you too.” She tilted her head up for a kiss. 

He just brushed his lips against hers before he looked up. “Are your roommates home?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t know where they’ve gone off to, but it seems we have the house to ourselves.” She took his hand, leading him into the living room. “Do you want anything to drink? Are you hungry?”

“No, I’m fine.” He turned toward her again when they were in front of the sofa, gently wrapping his arms around her. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you today, and then halfway through the day I started to feel like this morning had been a long time ago. It’s been a strange day.”

“The day’s been pretty strange for me too,” she said, gently pushing on his hip as she angled herself towards the sofa.

“What did you do today?” he asked as he sat down, sliding his arm behind her back. It fit just perfectly behind her shoulders, and she leaned into him, letting him support her.

“I mostly painted in my studio. Edward came over and brought me dinner as he’d somehow intuited that I’d forgotten to eat.”

“Is this the same Edward who broke his ankle the night before Tom left for the states?”

“The very same.” She felt surprised for a moment that anyone other than she and Edward and Tom would know that story, but of course Tom would have talked to Ben about it.

“He’s very important to you, isn’t he?”

“Very. He’s definitely my family of choice. From the time we were eleven to now the only time we’ve really been separated was when I went back to the states for university and grad school, and even then we managed to see each other a few times each year. When I moved back to London we were roommates for a while. It was like we’d never been apart.”

“He sounds like a rare friend.”

“I couldn’t do without him.” She looked up at Ben. “He already knew about Tom, and about the so-called Ben.” She took a deep breath. “I told him about you today.”

“So, he knows that Ben is really Ben?” Ben smiled, clearly still amused by Tom’s poor attempt at subterfuge.

“Yes.”

Ben nodded. “We all have to be able to confide in people who are worthy of our trust. I know you didn’t make that decision lightly.”

“I don’t really think I have anyone else I’ll be telling anytime soon,” she said.

“What about your parents, or your siblings?” Ben asked.

She turned herself so she could look at him more naturally, his arm still around her shoulders. “My mum and I don’t really get on all that well. I mean, we’re cordial, and we love each other, but I have never considered her a confidant. I know I’ll have to tell her eventually, but it’ll be out of necessity. I could tell my dad. He lives in Maine, and to be honest he pretty much will have no idea who you are. He certainly hadn’t a clue with Tom, but he’s not impressed with celebrity anyway, which is nice. I’ll probably tell him the next time we chat.”

“So you’re closer to your dad, but you live in the same city as your mother?” 

“Yeah, it’s funny how that worked out. I grew up in Maine until I was eleven, then moved here with my mom when they got divorced, because her family was in the UK. I moved back to the states for university and a gap year and then grad school. When I was done with that I moved back to London to be closer to Edward, amongst other things, and I just made a place for myself here and never looked back.”

“Do you have any siblings?” He adjusted his arm as she brought her legs up onto the sofa, leaning her back against his chest.

“My sister Tessa is three years younger than me. She was eight when we moved to London, and she never lived in the states again. She actually married an Irish man, and they live in Ireland. My dad married my stepmother Kathleen when I was twenty. She’s from Ireland though she’s lived in the US a long time, and she has two adult daughters, Aiobheann and Cara. Aiobheann moved to Ireland before Kathleen and my dad got married and she’s stayed there for years. Cara,” she paused. “I have to admit I have no idea where she is. Nothing to do with her being Irish, but she’s like an actual fairy in that she just sort of flutters from thing to thing. Every time I check in she’s got some new job on an organic flower farm, or she’s learning about yoga in Costa Rica, or she’s decided to start studying essential oils. She’s a nice person, just a bit flakier than I’m used to.”

“Are you and Tessa close?” Ben asked.

She took a moment to think about her response. “I’d say yes, but I’m not sure she would.” She laughed shortly. “Sorry, that sounds really odd. She was always focused on getting married and starting a family, and that was never my first priority, and I think she found that so odd we just didn’t really connect. But I love her, and I love my niece. I think she appreciates how much I love her daughter and we connect about that, more than anything.” She sighed. “That sounded really weird and bitter.”

“I didn’t think it sounded bitter.” He kissed the side of her neck, near her shoulder, surely intending to be comforting. It soothed the irritation she felt trying to explain her relationship with Tessa, but also warmed her to her core.

“Thanks. You know something kind of funny, Aiobheann has two partners. A man and a woman. They’ve been together for years.”

“That is kind of funny. I was going to say maybe polyamory is in your blood, but you’re not genetically related to her, are you?”

“No, and we never even lived together, so really no accounting for it. I like John and Andrea very much. They’ve got a son named Aiden too, not quite a year old now.”

“How do they find living in Ireland?”

“As far as I can tell they don’t apologise or explain. It’s a pretty rural area. They may be letting people assume that one of the women is a spinster auntie or something. I’ve never actually gotten into the nitty gritty of how they do it. They just sort of live and let live there. Doesn’t mean their neighbors actually accept them but no one is coming for them with pitchforks.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad,” Ben said.

“I think they’re happy. I definitely know Aiobheann better than Cara but I’ve only been to their home once, and that was before Aiden was born.” She shifted again, wanting to look at him more fully, wound up awkwardly twisted about and nearly on her knees next to him, one hand on the back of the sofa. She leaned down to kiss him, steadied by his hand on her back, but still felt wobbly. “This sofa is kind of awkward for what I want,” she said.

“What would that be?” his slow smile looked conspiratorial. 

“I want to be able to see you while we’re talking and maybe make out with you a little.”

“Only a little?”

“Time will tell.” She stood up and offered him her hand, pleased when he followed her eagerly up the stairs.

In her room she turned on the lamp and glanced around as Ben shut the door. Other than the pile of clothes on the chair it was habitable enough. She kicked her shoes off and got onto the bed, arranging the pillows so they each had one. Ben scrunched his pillow up as he lied down, smiling at her as he settled in.

"So, what about your family? Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

Ben started to shake his head, then stopped himself. "That's horrible, I'm sorry. Yes, I do have a sister. She's nearly eighteen years older than me, though, so I don't remember living in the same house as her. She's my mother's daughter."

"Do you get on with her?" Shannon traced her fingers over his shoulder, letting herself push hard enough to slide the fabric against his skin.

"We don't not get on." He shrugged. "We see each other at holidays and birthdays, the odd family dinner. She lives in Swindon with her husband, where she has her shop.”

"Oh really?"

"She does antique restoration, mirrors and frames. Some art repair, but mostly gilded frames."

"Is she an artist herself?" She traced down his sleeve to where he'd rolled it above his elbow, tucked her hand into the warm crease there, tickling against him as she continued down the inside of his arm.

"She is, though she wouldn't introduce herself as such." He seemed to be speaking carefully. "She did that painting that's in the upstairs hall in my house."

Shannon thought for a moment. "The cathedral rose window?"

"Yes, that one."

"Oh well that's lovely. She doesn't have to be making a living at painting to call herself an artist." It was a very pretty piece, she remembered, with bold deliberate lines and balanced color. She'd only glanced at it, assumed it to be something the decorator had sourced for him, but it had a sentimental slant to it as well. "Is it a place that she knows well?"

"It's the window from Swindon Cathedral."

"It feels like a place she really loves."

Ben kissed her forehead. "You're looking at it in your head?"

She shrugged, found out. "I can do that with some things. I'm horrible at faces, though. Directions too. Don't expect me to have an eidetic memory, because I don't."

"Very well." He kissed her again, then settled back against his own pillow.

"Does your sister have any children?" Ben's family seemed very small, compared to her own sprawling network of people.

"No, just dogs. So I haven't any nieces and nephews. I don't have any cousins either. My mother and father were both only children."

"Wow." She tried to imagine it, growing up without a doubly thick wall of people surrounding her. "I grew up with literally dozens of cousins. I can't imagine not having cousins around."

"Your siblings weren't enough?"

"I've just got the one sister, and the three step sisters, and I didn't meet them until I was quite a bit older."

"But you seem fond of them. You spend time with them fairly frequently."

"Maybe even more so, soon," she said, almost to herself. "Were you not lonely when you were a child?"

"A bit, sometimes. Maybe that's why I grew up to be a consummate polyamourist."

She laughed, curling forward until her head bumped into his chest. "How do you explain me then?"

"I don't think I could even begin to try." He let his fingers rest on the back of her neck for a moment, then began tucking strands of hair back up under her braid.

"Oh well done, you've figured that out on our first date."

His fingers were still against the back of her neck, resting there. "I wouldn't say this was our first date."

"Oh, because we've not gone out anywhere? I suppose you could be right. What do you call this then?"

"No, because the first date should have been when you came to my house the night before last."

She rolled away from him, folded her hands behind her head, making him budge over to make room for her elbow. "I'm not sure I'd call that a first date," she said.

Ben propped himself up on one arm and looked down at her. "We shared conversation over a hot drink, I got naked and we wound up in bed together. What do you call that?"

She laughed out loud. "Ok, fair enough, that was a date. And this morning?"

"Also a date. Unequivocally. I can't possibly be convinced of anything else."

"There was a hot drink involved," Shannon conceded. "I don't think there's any of that in evidence this evening."

"Yet here we are," Ben said, gently straightening her arm that was nearest to him so he could slip under it, wrapping his arms around her and resting his head against her chest and shoulder. "I think we can forego the hot drinks, given that it's our third date."

"Our third date," Shannon mused out loud. She ran her fingers through his hair, curious when he shivered at that gentle touch. He angled his face up so she couldn't easily do it again, looking up at her, the bedside lamp casting a tiny circle of gold next to each of his pale irises.

"Is that significant to you somehow?" He was clearly trying to suppress a smile, the corner of his mouth somehow curving both up and down.

"Only in that when I was young, before I really had need of any such thing, I developed a rather arbitrary set of guidelines for myself, the third date being the time of which certain frivolities might be engaged in."

Ben grinned openly. "How delightfully Victorian of you. Do go on. What were these frivolities you speak of? Have we _engaged_ in any of them already?"

"Look, like I said, I was very young when I came up with that set of rules." She looked at him, had to tilt her head to one side to be sure of herself. "You are leering at me, Mr. Cumberbatch."

"No more than any other man would leer at you," he said, visibly attempting to rearrange his expression. He succeeded, but only a bit. "Tom would leer at you in this moment I'm sure of it. He still leers at you."

"He does no such thing."

"He leers, he just covers it up with gentlemanly aplomb." He closed his eyes, looking almost demure for it. "I have seen him do it."

"Really." She thought about it. "I hadn't noticed, lately, which is a shame."

"Is it?" He opened his eyes, slid closer to her so he could kiss the side of her neck, working his way up towards her ear with quick warm wet bites, his teeth covered with his lips.

"Perhaps I'm just a sure thing, if I don’t inspire leering any longer." He wrapped one hand around the other side of her neck, holding her still, one finger stroking at the soft patch of skin behind her ear, mimicking what his mouth was doing on the other side. She pressed on, feeling an element of contest in it. "Or we've become a staid and stodgy couple already. Soon we shall be like those elderly people who stare at each other in a Denny's and don't speak." It was a struggle to keep her voice steady.

"What's a Denny's?" He spoke just under her ear, voice low and rumbling, holding her steady between his face and his hand.

She thought for a moment, trying to collect herself. "It's like a Little Chef, only not just on motorways. Open twenty-four hours."

"And filled with the elderly? It sounds ghastly." He worked his way back down, nudged her shirt out of the way with his nose, and failing that, his hand as he kissed her clavicle.

"The elderly and young people who are either drunk or too young to drink. They are ghastly, but that's not the point." She pushed gently at his face as he began lingering over the notch at the base of her throat, the sensation too much suddenly.

"What was your point?" Ben wrinkled his brow as he looked up, doing his best attempt at being lost and pitiful.

"Something about how if I were with Tom right now I'd already have taken my bra off through my sleeve." She covered her face with her hands after she said it. "It's true, the magic is gone. He's seen the bra through the sleeve moment."

"Why through your sleeve?" Ben tugged at the hem of her shirt. "Wouldn't it be more comfortable the other way?"

"Because I don't sit around the house with my tits out all night long," she said, swatting at his hand. He removed it, but then spider-walked up the side-seam of her jeans to tug on it again.

"Whyever not?"

She crossed her arms over her chest, elbowing him in the shoulder. "I'm saving them for something special."

He rolled back, retreating for the moment. "Is tonight special?"

She let him wait, watched as he touched his lips, slightly swollen, with the side of his thumb, a gesture she'd seen him make before, but with a different meaning now. She felt light headed, almost mad with the possibilities, found herself mirroring his slow smile before she even spoke.

"Convince me."

"Convince you? No." Ben smiled at her gently, softening his words as he shifted, rolling closer to her, arms wrapping around her.

"What? Oh." She let herself be held close as he angled her head down for a kiss, let herself be lost in the sensation of kisses that faded one into the other, only the barest movements between them, arms sliding against fabric, warmth growing between them. She hitched her leg over his hip, only to allow herself to move more comfortably in the small space, and he slid into the space she made, pulling back just enough to look at her, making sure it was ok. She enthusiastically nudged him closer with her calf against the back of his legs, smiled triumphantly as he leaned into her, weight resting on her chest as he used his hands to hold her head, thumbs outlining the top of her brow, the heels of his hands against her temples.

She sighed and rested her head against his shoulder as he reached back, grabbing the quilt that had fallen off the side of the bed, not wanting to be separated from him for even that moment. When he laid it over the both of them it was cool, at first, the cotton crisp against the back of her wrists when she wrapped her arms around him, but it warmed and softened around them, keeping them in a warm cocoon.

Ben shifted again, the sharp side of his hip digging into hers as he reached for the bedside lamp. "This is in my eyes," he said quietly. "Can I just," he was messing with the shade, but one-handed, off balance, and it teetered on its base. 

"Just switch it off," she said. The room was plunged into darkness in a moment, her eyes adjusting after a second to see by the light from the edges of the windows. "Here, I'll switch these on." She leaned to the window sill, felt along the wire for the tiny paper lantern lights, and clicked them on, bathing the room in a soft light. "Much nicer."

"Much." Ben turned his attention to the side of her neck, making her shiver, remembering from that morning, surely, building on what he'd already found, lingering on the most sensitive spots. She shivered and burned by moments, the tiny space they were in under the blanket almost too warm, but the quiet shelter of it too comforting to forgo. She let her fingers trace over his long neck, pressing gently against his pulses, converging at the front, tripping over the smooth skin of the top of his chest. She let herself push lower, worrying at the highest button on his shirt. He leaned back, welcome relief from the sensation that shot through her when he was kissing her neck, held still while she opened it, neither helping nor hindering her. She slipped her flat hand inside, pushing against the flat of his sternum, testing the edges of his pecs, softer than Tom's but no less lovely for it.

"Comparing?" Ben asked softly, sitting back. His shoulders took the quilt with him, cooling off her own shoulders as the air hit her, making her realize how nearly damp the soft fabric of her shirt had become.

"No." She had to stretch to keep her hand on him, but managed to trace the subtle edge of muscle, hitting the next button. She didn't have the leverage to open it, just let her hand fall away as he undid the rest of the buttons himself, shrugging out of the shirt and tossing it to the foot of the bed, outside of the quilt. "Just enjoying."

He held one arm out as he laid himself back down, keeping her inside the quilt, sitting up just enough that he could look at her. "Yeah, me too." He slipped his hand just under the front hem of her shirt and she held still, waiting for him to work his way up, but instead he slid it round to the small of her back, still against her skin, to pull her close again.

His other arm wrapped around her shoulders, a comfortable place for her to rest her head when she tilted back, surrounded by him as he kissed her. She could feel the warmth of his skin keenly through her shirt, almost too much, and she pushed gently on his chest.

He slid back, not bolting away from her but giving her plenty of space.

"You're overheating me on purpose," she accused.

"I would never." His slow smile gave him away, though. "Maybe making you a little warmer than entirely necessary."

When he shifted his weight on to his lower arm the shift of muscle under his skin was mesmerizing.

"Well, it's working." She pulled her shirt off over her head, heard him move back as she stretched her arms forward. She rolled onto her back a bit, watching him out of the corner of her eye. 

"Is that all you want gone?" He asked. His hand hovered over her chest for a moment, just the tip of his longest finger tracing over the plain smooth edge of her bra.

"No." She rolled towards him, put her arms around his neck and tucked her face against his shoulder, waiting as he reached back to the clasp in her bra, squeezing it together with one hand and running his hand down her back as it came free.

"Well done, Mr. Cumberbatch," she said, letting her lips move against his skin. He swept the straps off her shoulders, held still while she pulled it out from between them, sighing happily as she felt his skin against hers.

She held still in the circle of his arms, letting him hold her close, warm now, but not too warm. When he kissed her again it was hungry, almost sloppy, the slow strokes of his hands against her back out of cadence with his mouth.

She gasped against his lips, arched her back, rolling away from him by inches, then back, never losing contact, her chest against his. She tried to wrap her arms around him too, but his shoulders were too broad to reach over, too tall to slip under. Her arms wound up awkwardly between them, fingertips resting against his waistband. He brushed against her thigh, the hard warmth under his trousers apparent. She let her fingers push against the edge of his waistband, testing the fabric, half hoping that it would give way and half hoping that it wouldn't. It bent, crumpled, her fingers brushing against skin so smooth and warm she had to touch more of it, slipping into that warm space, smoothing along the very edge of his abdomen, into the cut of his hip, prying at his trousers.

He'd already opened the fly of his trousers when he'd taken his shirt off, she remembered, the back of her hand grazing over the stiff line of his cock under his boxers, the silk cool against her skin. He jutted his hips away from her and she drew her hand back, thinking he was trying to get away from her, but in that second he was wriggling out of his trousers, kicking them off down the bed with ungainly motions, holding onto her shoulder with one hand as if he couldn't bear to let go of her for even a moment.

She kicked her own jeans to the bottom of the bed, the blanket sliding down too until Ben reached down, dragged it up over them as they rolled back together. The thin layers of fabric between them made the sensation of him pressing against her even keener, somehow, the cotton that rubbed against his silk catching her wetness and holding it against her where she could feel herself slipping on it.

Ben stroked his hand down her back, fingers stopping at the edge of her pants, pressing down. She reached down to his bum, grabbed as much of him as she could hold, fingers slipping in the fabric. He rested his face in the curve of her neck while he traced the edge of her waistband, kissing along her pulse, bumping into her chin as he tried to look up at her without moving away.

"Should we?"

She propped herself up on one elbow, her other hand still pressed firmly into the lush curve of him. His eyes were wide, reflecting the low light, lips parted as he breathed, deep and nearly silent.

"I want to." She could hear how it wasn't really an answer. "Yes."

Between his hands and her twisting hips her pants were off in an instant. She was left exposed but unseen as Ben rolled away, just a half turn, as he pushed his own off, tossing them to the end of the bed along with his trousers. He hugged her again, skin to skin, angling his body carefully so his cock was snug against the curve of her hip, safe.

She rocked against him, felt his breath stutter against her throat as he kissed her. "I've got something, up here," she said, reaching back towards the dresser. She had to push herself back on her shoulders, leaning as far as she could, fingers straining towards the top drawer. Ben held on to her waist, looking at the bowed curve of her as she searched with her fingers for the little box, snagging it by the edge as she struggled to get back to the bed, leaning off the side. Ben slipped his arm under her back, guiding her down on to the mattress.

"Thanks," she said. "I thought I could reach."

"You look magnificent." He took the box from her hand and opened it, tucking it next to the window sill when he was done tearing off a single condom. 

"Let me?" She held her hand out, noting how he hesitated before he put it in her palm. "I know what I'm doing."

"I know you do." He handed it over. 

"Right then." She pushed on his chest, gently, watched him as he laid back, eyes half closed. She reached for him under the covers, but pushed the sheets back as she held him in her hand. He was slender, but felt all the harder for it, tapered, not swollen beyond the edges of his head the way Tom was. She thought about how it would feel, tried to imagine it as she rolled the condom on and shivered with anticipation. Ben saw, hand coming up to cup the side of her breast. She shuddered again as he brushed his thumb against her nipple, the fact that he could see her so clearly affecting her as much as anything else.

She slid back down beside him, lying on her side, still gently holding him, running her hand up and down his length. He rolled towards her, kissing her shoulder as he settled, arm curved up above his head as he reached for her with the other one. He slid his fingers up the front of her thigh, rested the side of his hand right against the v-shape of her until she let her legs open up, leaving him plenty of room to touch, pressing on soft skin until she had opened up against his fingers, leaving him room to slip against her.

He stared up at her, smiling slowly. "God, you're so wet." He let his hand turn back and forth, covering himself in her. "You feel... swollen."

She sighed sharply. "I've been worked up all day, what did you expect?"

He grinned as he traced his fingertip around her opening. "I didn't expect this."

She let go of him and rolled away, on to her back. "I didn't expect it, but I wanted it." She coaxed him over her, running her hands up his arms as he steadied herself on the headboard, kneeling between her legs.

He pulled his right hand away reluctantly, running his palm down the outside of her arm, tangling their fingers together for a moment before he reached down and spread her apart once again, running his thumb up her center, pushing against the underside of her clit. She pushed against him, humming happily as he rocked his thumb back and forth, just exactly right.

She gasped and looked down at him, narrowing her eyes as he smiled with just one side of his mouth. "You," she stumbled on the rest of what she intended to say when he wiggled his thumb against her.

"Cheated?" he suggested, pulling his hand away. "I wouldn't call that cheating. We're both with him."

She laughed and looked away, shivering as some of the tension dissipated. "Yeah, we are."

Ben took himself in hand as he slid his other hand down her side, pressing down on the inside of her thigh, holding her open as he rubbed himself in slow circles against her.

"Ben, please?"

He glanced down for a moment, lining himself up, snug and warm against her cunt, then looked up at her as he pushed forward, leaning over her as he slid inside.

She let out a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding, wound up breathing in deep just as he leaned over her, his chest warm against hers. He held his weight off of her as he leaned tight against her, bringing his elbows to either side of her arms.

"Sweet," she said, working her arms out from under him to wrap around his back.

"What?" he spoke softly, resting his forehead against hers for a moment as she rested her hands flat against his back.

"That felt sweet." She let her eyes flutter shut as he pulled back a bit, rocking back into her slowly.

"Want me to keep it sweet?"

"Yeah, for now anyway." She bent her knees and tilted her hips, letting him settle in deeper, warmth spreading slowly as he pulled back.

She held still, letting him set up an easy rhythm, just rocking back underneath him. The first time the bed creaked she ignored it, figured it would settle. As he pulled back the frame sighed, sound of metal and wood moving against each other. Then it did it again, and again, until Ben was laughing softly against her ear.

"Did you know you had the loudest bed in the world?"

She shook her head, nipping at the side of his neck. "I didn't know."

The creak and groan of the frame was obscene and somehow hilarious, and she hid her face against his shoulder as she tried to stifle her laughter. "Just go for it," she said, pushing her hips up against him, the counterpoint introducing yet another sound in the symphony of the bed and mattress. "Might as well, we're the only ones here."

"Yeah?" Ben pushed himself up on his arms, the only place they were touching now where he was pressing up against her pelvis, seated firmly inside her. He pulled back as far as he could without falling out, slow and silent, then rushed back in, making her gasp when he bottomed out, the sound of the bed coming all in one cacophonous screech.

"Yes."

She moved under him, pushing back in counterpoint, the sound of the bed fading in her ears to a single loud white noise. It was hot and dirty and simple and she wriggled with the sheer delight of getting fucked in a single bed, lifted her arms up and let her hands roam over his chest and shoulders, tracing the lines of his arms. He breathed with his mouth open, quiet, or, at least, quieter than the bed, and she traced the lush curve of his lower lip, then stuck her finger in his mouth, not even knowing why. He bit down, grinning at her when she whimpered, tonguing against it before letting her go.

The heat that was building up in her was broad and thick, heavy and solid but not building to any point. She squeezed her cunt around him, trying to force it. He groaned and leaned forward, base of his cock rubbing against her clit and she sighed happily, feeling it start to flow, a distant promise.

He lowered himself over her, warm against her chest again, pressure against her clit tighter even as he wasn't able to thrust as deeply. She nibbled on the side of his jaw, approving, dug her heels into the mattress and pressed back against him, then froze when the front door slammed.

"Oh shit," Ben said softly.

"What do we do?" She could hear at least two sets of feet, then the door opening and closing again, and then it was at least two more.

"We can try to be quiet." Ben held on to her and tilted his hips back, slid forward slowly, rocking inside her rather than thrusting, the bed barely moving at all. He held himself close to her, the place where they met practically a fulcrum. She quivered around him, felt herself clench in fear when there were footsteps on the stairs, low voices, people milling about just outside her door.

Ben kept up his slow but steady pace, the bed still silent. "You get so tight when you think you're about to get caught," he said, voice softer than a whisper, right at her ear. "Do you want to get caught?" He peeled the blanket away from them, leaving her exposed to the waist, entirely visible to anyone who might have stood in the doorway. She shuddered at the thought even as she grew tighter around him, the sharp spike of shame and fear feeling oddly close to pleasure.

"No." She tried to whisper but it came out as a squeak.

"You sure?" Ben ground against her slowly, still silent. She nodded. "Can you get off like this?"

"Almost." It built and ebbed in her, teasing.

"What do you need?"

"Just a little more." She slid her hand between them, tensing again when she heard her name spoken just outside the door, a curious _Is Shannon home?_ followed by something non-committal and feet shuffling on the landing as the washroom door opened and closed again. Ben lifted the blanket and pulled it over the both of them, nearly over her head, and she relaxed, the relief that he would cover her after all a warm rush that was better than the fear itself had been.

She moved her fingers in an easy complement to his hips, felt the slow rolling cadence of her muscles clenching, tried to lean into the sensation. Then he did something, twisted his hips, rubbed over her a different way, and she was surprised, the sensation shocking through her bones before it washed over her, her feet and legs clenched up. She heard her sudden sharp shout as if it were from someone else.

He pressed a single finger over her lips, trying to shush her. She managed to hold on to his back, fingernails digging into him as she gasped, trying to be silent, but her breath seemed to be rasping against her throat. When she finally settled back against the bed he had one arm behind her shoulders, gentling her down.

"I think they might have heard that," she said softly.

"They might have, but it wasn't that bad. You're not _caught._."

She shivered despite herself. "I guess I've still got plausible deniability."

He shook his head at her. "Are you sure you came?"

"Um, yes." She tried to squeeze down against his cock, still hard inside her, but her muscles were too tired, not obeying her as they had before.

"Because I think I'd be hard pressed to remember my name, much less say something like plausible deniability."

She pretended to consider. "You do have a difficult name." She pushed gently at his chest. "Let me go do some damage control and then we'll take care of you."

Shannon reached over the side of the bed, groping for a pair of track pants she was fairly sure were just under the bed.

"Do you often leave trousers under the bed?" Ben asked as she pulled them out.

"Shush." She pulled them on under the covers, not quite ready for him to see the undignified hop she would have done getting dressed out of the bed. "Hand me my shirt, will you?" 

Ben leaned to the end of the bed, felt around, and came up with one of her sweatshirts instead.

"You're sure the bed doesn't double as a clothing storage device?"

She pulled the shirt on over her head. "See me coming round to yours and insulting your housekeeping?" She shook her hair out of her face.

"Sorry." He looked, if not contrite, then pliant, lying under the quilt, one leg cocked out to the side, taking up more room in the bed than a skinny man had any business doing. She ran her hand up the inside of his leg, felt the back of her knuckles bump against his cock, slid her hand underneath and lifted gently. 

"I shouldn't leave you in this state, but," she pulled her hand away. "I'll be back soon."

"What does damage control entail, anyway, are you going to tell them you stepped on a thumbtack?"

She shook her head as she stood up, the floor cold against her feet. "You wander out, just to let people know that yes, you're home, and yes, you have someone in your room, and no, no one has to check to make sure you're really just shagging and not, perhaps, stepping on thumbtacks."

Ben folded his hands behind his head, and she found herself mesmerized for a moment by the expanse of pale skin in the dim room. "I await your triumphant return."

There was no one on the landing when she slipped out, and the washroom door was open. She went inside and locked the door, washed her hands and face and pulled her hair back, considering. They knew for sure that she was home, and fine, now. Going downstairs was an option, but not a necessity. As she unlocked the door, though, there were footsteps on the stairs, and she looked down the stairwell just in time to see Max coming up.

"So you are home." Max grinned up at her.

"Was there any doubt?" Shannon curled her cold toes against the cold floor.

"We're pretty loud and it's not like anyone was eavesdropping. Are you guys coming downstairs soon?"

"I don't think so." Shannon tried to make her voice even, neutral, but she couldn't keep the hint of salacious expectation out of it.

"We'll be gone soon anyway. You should actually come with us, we're going to the Space Gallery."

Shannon narrowly resisted the urge to actually smack herself in the forehead. "I totally meant to go to that." She glanced at the door to her room, her almost-obligations warring with what she actually wanted to do.

"You never promised anyone you'd be there and if anyone asks I'll just tell them something came up." Max laughed out loud at her own joke as she finished climbing the stairs.

"Puns are the lowest form of humor," Shannon insisted, though she couldn't help but smirk a little, thinking of Ben, waiting for her just a few feet away.

"Please, there's so little room for erection humor in my corner of the world." Max bumped her hip gently as she slid past her to her own room. "Say hi to Tom for me."

"Ok, I will," Shannon said, soothing herself immediately with the thought that technically, it wasn't a lie. She would. Just not right away.

As soon as Max was out of sight Shannon scurried back into her own room, managing not to slam the door behind herself. Ben was wrapped in the quilt, sitting in the middle of the bed.

"You let her assume I was Tom!" he hissed at her as she shoved her feet under the blanket, trying to pull it away from him.

"What was I supposed to say, oh, it's not Tom, it's Tom's boyfriend?"

Ben shrugged as he slid back, pulling the quilt over both of them again. "Could have said it's my other boyfriend." He looked pleased as she snuggled up next to him, stroking her hand down his stomach.

"What they don't know won't hurt them," she insisted, wrapping her fingers around his only slightly softened length, all thoughts of anyone else effectively banished.

Ben shivered, and she closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of him filling up in her hand, turgid and warm. She held on tighter, slid her hand up his length, felt the tightening of the sheath that she played with under his head, watching his face carefully as she ran her fingers over his slit. She could still feel where he'd rubbed against her, inside, feeling firm and strong, but with him in her hands there was a sense of vulnerability to him.

Downstairs there was still the sound of people gathering, laughing, the faint sounds of cupboards opening and shutting. They were in for awhile, and she smiled at him as if they had a secret between them. Considering that everyone assumed he was Tom, they did.

She pulled a little firmer, pulled the covers off his chest slowly, grasped the edge of the duvet in her hand as she got to his hip so she didn't drag the fabric over his cock. Even in the dim light she could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his eyes got wider and wider.

"Afraid someone will see you?" she asked softly. He twitched in her hand at the sudden sound of footsteps on the stairs, and she squeezed harder. "Hmm?"

"No, it's fine." He folded his arms behind his head again, and she pulled the blanket the rest of the way down to look at him.

She loosened her hand and let her fingers trace what her eyes could see, pressing down on the vein that ran up the side of him. She watched him carefully as she ran her fingertip around the edge between the shining head and his retracted sheath, noted the quick twitch of his abs when she lingered at the little gather at the back of him, teasing against it as she pushed herself up on one elbow. The angle was awkward, reclining next to him, and she threw the covers off of him entirely as she sat up, edging herself down the bed to sit next to his hip before she wrapped her hand around him again.

"Are you cold?"

"No." He unfolded his arms, reached for the pillow she'd left behind and wedged it behind his head, watching as she moved to sit right in front of him. She urged his legs up so she could scoot closer, her folded legs snugged up to the warm curve of his bum. Once she was settled she scratched her nails lightly down the pale insides of his thighs, ghosted her fingertips over his sac, ran her palms lightly up his dry shaft until her fingers were resting against his slit, gathering up the bead of silky fluid there. He sucked his breath in as she pressed hard, getting it all, and she looked up at him as she spread it down his shaft, feeling it dissipate all too quickly.

"Hold on." She let go of him, held on to his thigh for balance as she leaned over the side of the bed, straining for what she knew was just out of sight.

"What?" Ben sounded almost weak but she didn't dare twist to glance back at him, her body already bent strangely.

"Just a second." She barely grasped the edge of the small bottle, then dragged it forward enough to pick it up properly. "Aha." She sat up with it, triumphant.

Ben smirked at her. "Is there anything that isn't under your bed?"

"Shush, it's a small room. I make do with the space I have." She flipped the top open.

"I thought you said you'd never had sex in here."

"I hadn't." She turned the bottle upside down, waiting for it to pour out of the small top. Squeezing just made a mess, and she didn't want too much in her hand.

"Wait." He was reaching out, as if to stop her. "Before you do that."

"Yes?"

He licked his lips. "Will you take your shirt off?"

She thought quickly. Of course he'd prefer if her shirt were off, but it was different, having her shirt off while lying down, shoulders back or, even better, arms above her head, everything stretched just so, and sitting on her bed with trousers on. She could feel it, the way her stomach folded in the middle, imagined the line where the waistband hit her skin. Sitting up like this, bent forward, not even leaning on her hands, was going to render every flaw visible, the way her breasts had a tendency to settle on her chest, sitting there like two birds instead of pointing forward, the way they only did when she held her shoulders back. She grasped the hem of the sweatshirt, still thinking. Over the past few months Tom had told her she was beautiful enough times that she'd taken it to heart. He'd loved her body so enthusiastically and for long enough that it was impossible not to get caught up in it, basking in it, but Ben was new. She smiled to herself, suddenly remembering that Ben had already seen her and felt her up, already knew how soft she was in places. He wasn't about to turn away in distaste or go soft just because she wasn't model thin. She pulled the shirt off, smiling more broadly as something else occurred to her.

"What are you grinning about?" Ben let his gaze wander over her, hummed softly as she stretched with her arms over her head, sincerely working out a stiff spot on her back before she reached for the lube again.

"I can't say." She poured the lube into her palm, still smiling at the thought that if he did dare to do anything as stupid as disparage her, implicitly or explicitly, that Tom would certainly set him straight.

She let it warm up, holding her palms together as she looked at him. He looked perfect, and she resisted the urge to suck her stomach in. She reached for him with her fingers threaded together, caught his length between her palms, pressing the heels of her hands together so he was caught in the tight space between her hands. She twisted her hands a little as she slid down, felt the tremble in his body as she rested her hands against his skin, the quiver as he tried to hold still. She held on tight as she slid back up, pulling his skin tight. She twisted her wrists as she pushed her hands back down, watched as he pushed his head back into the bed, pale length of his neck and chin standing out against the dark sheets.

She found her breath matching his, her hands and arms tingling when he started to thrust up into the tight space her hands made. She leaned forward, rapt, watching his stomach tighten, muscles standing out when he tensed, smoother when he tried to relax. Vaguely she could hear the sounds of footsteps and voices up and down the stairs, people getting ready to gather and leave, a single goodbye shout that was directed at her, but she didn't really register it. After the front door slammed Ben seemed to feel free to let his voice become louder, no longer panting quietly, almost silently. Each exhale was a high pitched sigh, shorter and quicker as his hands tightened in the sheets, one knee bumping into her arm as he twitched. The muscles stood out on his stomach intently, and his mouth twisted down hard as he came, straining in her hands as if he were trying to escape. She loosened her fingers slowly, holding him gently as he softened, wet and bright red, even in the low light.

He relaxed his neck, looking down at her, smiling as he unwound his fingers from the sheets.

"Hello," she said, at a loss of what to say, really, as she carefully set his softened cock against the groove in his pelvis.

Ben's laugh surprised her, a low rumble that seemed to come to the surface slowly. She was still surprised by the fullness of his smile, the way it spread over his face, so unlike the tight guarded expressions she had been used to when they first met.

"So formal," he said, holding his arms up to her, fingers lightly curled. "Come here."

She unfolded her legs carefully as she lowered herself to his side, let him pull her in close. He rolled towards her and managed to reach the edge of the blanket, pulling it up over their shoulders.

"Cozy," he said, approvingly as she rested her head on his shoulder.

"I'm a bit cold, actually." She tugged on the edge of the blanket and he wrapped it around her tighter, running his hand along the edge to make sure there wasn't a draft.

"If you'd like I'm sure I can put my hand down the side of the bed and come up with an anorak or something."

She swatted gently at his chest as he chuckled at his own joke. "I'm very tidy at Tom's house," she pointed out. "You've never found my clothes jammed into the sides of his bed."

"To be fair, his bed is in the middle of the room," Ben pointed out. "And I'm sure he would have cleared your things out before I went over anyway, the few times I've been lately. For obvious reasons, he's usually come to my house."

"Well, that'll be changing I suppose," Shannon said, feeling an odd sense of happiness about it all, that her two boyfriends wouldn't have to be discreet about their meeting. Tom had never been overly clandestine, but he'd never made apologies for wanting to have Ben in his space or to spend time with him. She wouldn't have wanted that, but it had been a fine balance.

"You mean he won't pick up your things before I come over?"

Shannon pinched his side, lightly, just a warning, before smoothing her hand over his skin. "He doesn't now, I told you, I can be tidy. I mean, you can come to his house, he can go to your house, it doesn't matter so much, because you don't have to worry about avoiding an awkward situation with me."

"Will we come here?" He shifted so he could look at her face more easily.

"For reasons that were fairly obvious today, I'm thinking not," she said. "It's not that I don't like my roommates, but we're sort of stuck in this room in some ways, considering that I'm fairly sure that you and Tom don't want your relationship with each other being known. Sort of by proxy if it's known that you're dating the same woman it's going to look suspicious."

Ben shrugged. "We're not really so well known that it would be an issue, though I think Warrior is going to change that for Tom. So you're right, discretion probably is the better part of valor for now."

She shivered, even though she wasn't cold. "For now," she echoed. "We didn't really think this through." There was a gnawing sensation in the bottom of her stomach and she looked down at the folds of the quilt over them, avoiding his gaze.

He held her tighter, one hand rubbing down the middle of her back. "We did, if you'll remember. And I think we've all come to the same conclusion that we're not going to trade actual happiness for convenience." 

She hesitated to look at him, fearing that she'd see reproach or disappointment there, but he only looked expectant, and worried.

"We did agree that. I do believe it." It was almost too hard to keep looking at him, though he looked relieved now. She let herself rest her head back on his shoulder. "I might just need reminding from time to time." She shifted, and remembered that he was naked, snuggled against the fabric of her track pants. "No matter that it might be at odd times, for that sort of thing."

They were both quiet for a few moments, to the point that she wondered if he had fallen asleep. Then she felt his hand on her shoulder, fingertips rubbing a slow circle against her skin.

"What were you talking about with your friend in the hallway?"

She stretched her back, pushing her shoulders down into the bed, but his hand followed her. "Max reminded me that I was supposed to go to this gallery thing tonight. I had meant to but I hadn't actually told anyone that I was going."

"What sort of thing?"

"It's sort of a soft open for a show that's actually going to open this weekend. They open later at night and have music and it's neat but it's also sort of a see and be seen thing. I've never liked those." She rolled over, carefully, so she could snuggle closer to him. 

"Is it anyone you know?"

“Yes, actually, Christian who has the studio next to mine is going to have something in this show. I haven’t seen it but I’ve heard plenty about his frustration with it." She groaned softly, knowing she’d regret it if she didn’t go, gnawed at by guilt that she’d let her excitement about Ben drive out any and all thoughts of supporting her friend. "I should get up and go. I should." The bed felt like a comfortable vacuum.

"Come on. Get up, I'll go with you."

She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at him. "Are you sure?"

"Of course."

She thought for a moment, wondering if she would ever have noticed and recognized him on the tube, or in a shop, had it not been for Edward's obsession with Tom Hardy in the first place.

"If you're recognized, and you're with me," she tried to formulate her concern in a way that didn't sound alarmist.

"I'm not such a commodity that any gossip rag would want to hear about my late night trek to an art gallery, and if they did, so what?"

"I guess the only people who know I'm with Tom are my roommates and their friends."

"You're allowed to go out with a friend, surely?" He was already moving about, as if to sit up. She held on to the edge of the quilt, not wanting to get up quite yet.

"Yes. To be frank the only person who might recognize you for sure in that setting would be Max, and she's discreet."

"Why would she recognize me, particularly?" Ben was using his toes to reach to the end of the bed, looking for his pants.

"She's sort of turned out to be a closet cinephile."

"Well that's alright. Now, we need to get dressed." He pulled on his pants and started reaching for his trousers, making the quilt fall from her shoulders. "Tell me, where in the bed should I look for some of your clothes?"

Shannon huffed and stood up, pulling the quilt with her to wrap herself in. "I have a wardrobe, you know. It's cold in here and I crawl into bed half dressed a lot of the time and then things just wind up being stashed." When she'd pulled the quilt off the bed the bottle of lubricant had clattered to the floor. She picked it up and placed it in the shoebox under the bed.

"Yeah, speaking of things being stashed in and around your bed," Ben said, pulling his vest on. "What else is under your bed?"

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with." She stood in front of the wardrobe, contemplating the assortment of skirts therein. She pulled down a pair of tights that had been drying over the rod, held them over her arm while she selected a colorful skirt and a more sedate top to set off some of the colors in the fabric. She looked along the edge of the bed, moving awkwardly with the quilt over her shoulders, happy to see that Ben had found her bra and was holding it out to her.

"Even if I ask nicely?"

"Even then." She turned around and let the quit fall, slipped her bra on, and stepped back so Ben could fasten it.

"Which ones?" he asked, meaning the hooks.

"The middle." She twitched her shoulders happily as he ran his hands down her back, shivered when he kissed the nape of her neck, wondering if Tom had told him about that too or if it was just a good guess.

"So I really can't see what's in the box under your bed."

She turned around, covered by the bra and the clothes she was holding. "Nope."

"What if I show you mine?"

She laughed out loud. "I trust you don't travel with that particular box?"

He shook his head as he finished doing up the buttons on his shirt, and she marveled at the fact that he didn't look at all as if he'd just rolled out of bed.

"Then later. I'm going to the washroom. Do not even think of going under my bed while I'm gone."

"The very thought." He sat on the edge of the bed to put his socks on. "I'll wait for you downstairs." In the hallway he kissed her cheek quickly before they parted, and as he went down the stairs she found herself frozen to the spot, amazed, for a moment, at how domestic it all felt only half a day after having him in her life like this.

She found him in the kitchen, crouching down to pet Albion, the fluffy white cat.

"She will shed all over those trousers," Shannon warned him. Albion wasn't rubbing against him, but she was standing up very straight, tail high, as if she wanted to impress the new human.

"She's been meowing, is she hungry?"

Shannon reached down to scratch her behind the ears. "She meows all the time, so it's hard to say." She went to the fridge and Albion followed her, nearly prancing when she opened the door. "Alright you, hold on." She took out the covered plate of whitefish and scooped a good portion into Albion's dish while Ben watched, bemused.

"She eats whole fish?"

"She has kibble there, in her bowl, but she was waiting for fish, apparently." Shannon stuck the fork back into the fish and set it in the fridge, then washed her hands. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes." Ben took his car keys out of his wallet. "Where is this place anyway?"

"Shoreditch."

"I haven't been there in ages. You have an address?"

"Yeah, we can put it in your fancy GPS thingy." She led the way to the front door, reluctantly pushing Ben ahead of her even after he'd put his hand on the small of her back. "I have to set the alarm."

He waited for her outside, his hand on her back again as they walked to his car. She smiled as he opened her door, realizing that it didn't feel awkward anymore.

The gallery was only five miles away, but on the small streets it felt longer. Despite the late hour there were plenty of people about, and she realized that it was a Friday.

"I lose track of the days of the week sometimes," she admitted out loud.

"What brought that on?"

"I just realized it was Friday."

Ben glanced at her quickly. "You'd expect a late night event in the middle of the week?"

She shrugged. "It's not like most of these people have day jobs either."

He drove quietly for a while, then risked another look at her. "And you don't, yourself?"

She laughed softly. "I just realized that the things we don't know about each other are probably epic."

He grasped her knee for a moment, fingers pressing into her tights. "Probably but they're not terribly important as things go, I suspect."

"No, I don't have a regular daily job but I make most of my income by curating shows, not by selling art. It's been a near thing lately but most of the time that's how it is. I manage the temporary installations at a few galleries which entails babysitting the artist as well, and due to that I've got some work abroad, but most of the time I'm lucky enough to be able to just work in my studio without a care as to what time of the day or day or the week it is."

"Would you miss curating, if you didn't have to do it anymore?"

She looked out the window as she thought about it. "I think I would miss it. I don't know that there will ever be a point where I can comfortably turn down a job, and in a way it's a break. I don't have to be wondering if what I'm doing is a good use of my time, because at the end of the job I get paid, no matter what. When I first was living in London I worked for a catering company and that took a lot more of my time but I liked that as well. I love the freedom I have now, but there's something about the security of knowing that if you show up and do the job you get paid that is hard to let go of. And food service workers, on the whole, aren't known for being overly reliable, so the fact that I did show up guaranteed me a lot of work."

"When's the last time you did catering?"

"You would have to ask that," she said softly. Ben either didn't catch it or didn't know what to say. "Two weeks ago."

"Really?" He was watching the road but she could see him glance at her in the mirror.

"Tom was out of town, I wasn't curating anything. I was supposed to be painting but I just felt blocked and out of sorts. My old boss called in a panic. There was a big wedding in Mayfair. I wasn't getting anything accomplished so I threw on my white shirt black skirt combo, called up Edward, and we went out there and saved the day, for a handsome price. Under the table of course." She poked him in the arm when the car stopped at a red light. "You're not going to rat me out are you?"

"To whom, Inland Revenue?" He laughed. "No. I know that feeling, of not being able to say no to a job."

"Eventually it's going to become ridiculous." She found herself nibbling on the side of her thumbnail, forced herself to stop. Somehow she wound up talking about money with someone whose situation she had only an inkling of, but enough to know that he wasn't about to take up catering on weekends. "It might have already become ridiculous."

"Does that bother you? I mean, if someone asked you to help right now, would you want to?" He drove past the gallery, slowly, looking for parking, drove around the corner without being directed and silenced the GPS before it could urge him to turn around.

She looked back at the brightly lit front of the gallery, happy that they weren't going to arrive at the very end of the event. "You know, if it was someone I knew and they were really in a bind, I'd help because I wanted to help them out of a tight spot, but I don't think I'd do it just for the sake of taking the job."

He found a spot on the street, miraculously, and parallel parked. "There you go then," he said as he shut the ignition off. "You know what you want." He reached over to her and held the back of her head gently, touching his forehead to hers as if he were about to tell her a secret. "You're not ridiculous." He kissed her soft and quick and got out of the car. She was still looking towards his side of the car when he opened the door, and she had to turn towards him deliberately.

"Did you know that's one of my greatest fears, being ridiculous?"

"Certainly." He made sure her skirt and bag were clear of the door before closing it. 

"How?" She searched her memory, trying to remember if she'd ever told Tom that particular fact.

"Isn't it just about everyone's worst fear, really?"

She thought for a moment, her mind conjuring up Tom's bravado and tattoos, the quintessential gaudy plumage. "I don't think it's Tom's greatest fear."

"Well, two things there," Ben said as he fell into step beside her. "He has a child, so his greatest fears must now center around Louis. That, and he's not wired to be worried about that at all."

"Not like us mere mortals," Shannon joked as they crossed the street.

"Exactly." Ben looked nervous as they stood in front of the warmly lit gallery. The windows were covered in sheer curtains, but the shapes of people moving about inside were clear enough. "Do we just go in?"

"Yeah, it's fine, there's no secret code or anything." She rested her hand on the door. "Ready?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 will be Ben POV.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conclusion of Ben and Shannon's evening, from Ben's point of view.

"Ready."

He followed her inside, standing behind her as she waited to catch the eye of someone just inside the door who was turned away from them. When he turned his eyes seemed to light up when he saw Shannon.

"You made it! Max said she thought you were busy tonight." He held his arms out and Shannon stepped forward, giving him a quick, friendly embrace. 

"I thought I might be but as you say, I made it." She turned towards Ben, reaching for him slightly, and he stepped forward, not sure if he was supposed to take her hand or not. "This is my friend Ben. Ben, this is Ted."

Ted reached out and Ben took his hand, shaking it briefly as Ted gave him the look that Ben had been expecting. "You look familiar. Have you been here before?"

Ben looked around, trying to appear interested and thoughtful. "No, I don't think I have. I don't get out to this area very often."

"Huh." Ted looked at him for another moment, trying to place him, but finally turned back to Shannon. "So, Christian's stuff is in the back room, where the light is better for metal sculpture. The number of times I wanted to call you, though."

Shannon shrugged, and it managed to look generous, not dismissive. "You could have," she said. "Go ahead and try me next time if you need anything."

Ted smiled, gracious. "Hopefully I'll get to avoid mixed media shows. Anyway go on in, I think there's still some food left."

"Thanks." Shannon rested her hand gently on his lower back, high enough that they might have been simply friends. Ben wanted to reach for her, but kept his hands to himself, still not entirely sure what she'd be ok with in public. The gallery was a bright, open space, with glossy natural wood floors and high ceilings, the pipes painted white as well as the walls, but there were just enough people to make walking across the main room difficult. Shannon steered him to a spot in front of a large canvass that didn't have a group of people standing before it, at least six feet tall and half again as wide, and mainly blue, the bright azure of a swimming pool with the attendant white web overlying the waves, marking out where the light hit the moving water. It was only at the very edge that the concrete of the pool itself had been marked, and two stripes of color, the edge of a lounge chair and the red triangle of a corner of a towel. Shannon seemed to be looking at it carefully, so he kept quiet for a moment.

"It reminds me of something," he said. It was technically deft, to be sure, the illusion of the water well made, and interesting, not following any particular law of thirds with the idea of where the edge of the pool was so barely delineated, but it felt like something he'd seen before.

"Hockney," she said, softly. "It probably reminds you of Splash, which is a painting of a swimming pool that he did with rollers. It doesn't have those white marks for the light but the splash itself is done in white, with the house and diving board all blocks of color, similar to this."

Ben could almost imagine what she was saying, was sure he had seen it, in fact.

"So is this an homage?" He was standing close enough to her that their sleeves were brushing against one another. He took a step away, reluctantly.

"Well, this person has definitely seen Hockney's painting, it's unmissable, so in a sense it must be, but this is done with a brush and tempera paint, not rollers and oil, and the composition is entirely different." She stepped back and bumped into him slightly, steadying herself with her hand on his arm. He slipped his arm around her waist quickly. She looked up at him as she got her balance, and stepped back, her face tightening just for a moment.

"I know, sorry," he said softly.

"It's alright, just, for now," she was speaking almost too low for him to hear as she moved on to the next piece against the wall, this a white plaster sculpture on a pedestal. Ben allowed himself to look quickly, then dismiss it entirely, focusing on her instead.

She gave nothing away in the manner that she looked at it, her face a mask of polite interest.

"I kind of can't believe we're even here right now," Ben said, looking at the sculpture instead of at her, though he risked a glance, just in time to see the corner of her mouth quirk up, an unmistakable smirk.

"I was just thinking the same thing. Which is why I keep moving away from you." She walked at a normal pace across the room, towards a wide arch into the next space, pausing in front of a long vertical canvas that was done in shades of orange and red, like a view into an inferno, through an arrowloop.

"I thought you were dedicating your attention to art," he said, standing just behind her. He wanted to put his hand on her lower back, just low enough to rest the side of his thumb against the curve of her ass, wanted to pull her close to his side and kiss the top of her head almost as much as he wanted to murmur at her ear, reminders of what they'd been doing not even an hour previously.

"I am." She didn't quite cross her arms, but held on to her elbows, fingers fidgeting against her skin.

"Are you alright?" His lascivious thoughts seemed to vanish at the sight of her discomfort.

Her smile, at least, looked genuine. "I'm fine. I'd just rather be back in the house, though if I were there, I'd be thinking that I should be here."

"I wouldn't have distracted you?"

She shivered, her shoulders twitching visibly. "I'm sure you could have tried." She stepped closer to him, and he put his hand on her lower back, almost reflexively. She leaned into his touch. "The main room is just through here. We might see Max, my roommate."

"The one who thought I was Tom?" He quickly scanned the room as they walked in, trying to guess who of the people gathered in small groups through the space had been in the house that evening.

"To be fair, they probably all assumed that you were Tom."

"Are we going to disabuse them of that notion?" Ben asked as they walked towards one small group of people.

"They'll be too polite to question it and we'll be too polite to say anything ourselves." She moved ahead of him as they walked towards one edge of the group, a petite woman with very short hair clearly recognizing Shannon.

"You made it!" She held her arms out and Shannon accepted her hug, then stepped back to indicate Ben.

"Max, this is Ben. Ben, this is Max, one of my roommates."

"Pleased to meet you," Ben said, waiting for a quick sign as to how he should greet her. She tilted her face up as she stepped towards him, and he took the chance that she warranted more than a handshake, rested his hands lightly on her shoulders as he kissed her cheek. She was tiny, but there was a sense that she was coiled like a spring. He could imagine, even in that moment, her springing if needed. She stepped away from him and smiled at Shannon.

"I thought you'd be bringing Tom, if anyone." There was a hint of a challenge there, and Ben wondered if she had calculated the risk that he might be a romantic interest who didn't know about Tom at all.

"He's busy tonight," Shannon said, only the very faintest hint of color on her cheeks. By the gleam in Max's eyes, she hadn't missed it.

"A shame. Tell him we missed him."

Ben turned to look at the large complex metal sculpture, ribbons of copper melting into industrial rivets and pipes, then back into ethereal arabesques. It took up half the back wall of the room, and he let himself wander away from Max and Shannon. He watched them out of the periphery of his vision, wandered back as they were stepping apart. 

"We'll talk about it later," he heard Shannon say softly.

He stood next to her, and she put her arm firmly around his waist. He looked down, surprised but pleased, and she smiled up at him, pleasant but resolute.

"Let's see if we can find Christian," she said, her arm a firm pressure on his side. She turned to Max. "I'll see you at home."

Max merely wiggled her fingers at Shannon as she let herself be taken in by the small group she'd first been with.

Ben let Shannon lead him to the far end of the sculpture, where the copper had been strung out in strands so thin it looked like smoke. He stuck his hands into his pockets so he wouldn't be tempted to touch it.

"Good call," Shannon said, her arm loosening. "Copper tarnishes like a bitch and if Christian caught you, I don't even want to think about what he'd say."

"I wasn't going to," he said, fully aware of how defiant he sounded. She just laughed softly and walked away from him, past the end of the sculpture and into the next room.

He followed her, feeling just out of his element, but happy to see that they were the only people there. It was smaller by far, square, about ten feet to a side. The middle of the room was taken up by a copper disc, wider than his arm span, set into a white base that held it up while obscuring as little as possible.

"Is it a mirror?" he asked as they got closer. He had never seen copper polished to such a high sheen. It looked almost like gold, and when he stood directly in front of it he could see his reflection, only slightly warped by the contour of the metal. It was concave, whether an artifact of the process of hammering the metal that thin or a deliberate intent by the artist he couldn't guess. Christian was Shannon's friend, so to ask felt too awkward; if it were an artifact of the material, he'd have to demur that he wasn't questioning Christian's skill, when in reality he had really no idea what went into working with metal at all.

"Sort of." She stood next to him and took his hand. He couldn't help the small smile at that, feeling her hand in his and seeing them reflected thus at the same time. "Watch." She guided him forward, slowly, kept glancing up at him. "You're taller than me so that might make a difference."

The image blurred, nothing but stripes of dark color against the warm tone of the metal, and then, in another step, coalesced into a clear image, only this time they were upside down.

"Ah." He heard himself speak before he'd even decided to do so, truly surprised and pleased by the effect. "Then he meant to do this."

"Yeah. He swore a lot when he was trying to work out the math." 

"Did you help him?"

She shook her head. "I turned the radio up."

"Well, it turned out to be remarkable."

She let go of his hand and walked behind the mirror. He followed. The back was rougher, finished but dull, like a drummer's cymbal. "I think that this might be the making of him." She pressed her lips together as she looked at it and he tried to put himself in her place, but couldn't imagine if it was envy or something else she was feeling.

"It seems likely enough. Why isn't there anyone else in here?"

"Just lucky, I guess. It's nearly the end of the night, and this room is off to one side. People sometimes assume that they're not meant to go through a doorway." She looked around. "It should probably always be put in a room about this size, though, so people feel like they have to walk up to it. In another gallery he might have to have the walls put up for it." She walked around the edges, as if she was taking measurements for building it herself. "We should go find him."

Back in the main room at the front of the gallery the tables of food looked picked over, though there was still a small bar set up. 

"I didn't ask if you wanted something to drink because I didn't figure we'd be staying all that long," she said softly as they walked through the room.

"I'm fine." He smiled to himself, thinking that he might have risked it, had she not been so cautious. It wasn't as if one drink would go to his head, but she was right to be safe rather than sorry.

"Christian is over by the window. I'm not sure but I think that's Nina Caplan he's speaking with." She looked nervous, but he had no reason to think that this person posed a threat to her. She looked like an ordinary enough woman in her thirties, most likely, wearing a smart navy jacket over jeans. Ben couldn’t imagine trying to identify her by only looking at her back.

"Who?"

"She's an art writer for Time Out." She turned around and walked towards the bar, her hand on Ben's back again, guiding him. "If Christian sees me looking over at him he'll either try to get away from her and talk to me, or he'll tell me to come over there."

"Would that be so bad, the second, I mean?"

"I'm just very much not in the mood right now." She nearly vibrated with tension where she touched him.

"Do you want a drink? It's not as if you're driving."

She worried her lower lip as she looked up at him. "Would that be completely terrible of me?"

"Not at all. Come on."

Shannon seemed a little more at ease with a drink in her hand, sipping at it as she stood at the corner of the bar, turned just enough to keep an eye on Christian.

"What is that?" He hadn't heard her when she'd ordered, but the pink drink had been made quickly enough.

"This?" she lifted the glass towards him and he nodded, taking a sip of his own soda and lime. "It's a greyhound. Grapefruit and vodka." She looked at him over the rim of the glass as she drank, questioning.

"Just curious."

She set the glass down, playing with the cocktail napkin. "Why?" She looked at him, all faux innocence. "Were you expecting me to order an Old Harrovian?"

He had to turn away from her, the back of his hand over his face, soda suddenly tickling the back of his nose. When he recovered himself he turned around to find her smiling, pleased with her joke.

"Please don't," he said. "They're awful."

She shrugged. "A bit strong, maybe, but they just take some getting used to." She turned and looked towards Christian again. He was slowly disengaging himself from the group by the front of the room, by the looks of it. "I'm talking about the drink, of course." In the dim light the flicker of a smile around the corner of her mouth was almost impossible to see.

"Of course," he said, hoping that he hadn't let on how pleased he was that she had flirted with him, here, even if there was no one else who would have seen and understood it. "Orange and gin, if I recall. And bitters."

"As if you don't know." She actually winked at him as she set her drink down, turning fully to greet Christian as he came over.

Shannon didn't so much hug him as clutch his upper arms, his hands coming up to do the same to her. She nearly shook him as she enthused about his show, and Ben wondered how he could have ever thought she was cold or reserved. He was happy to watch them, stepping forward only when she finally let go of Christian's arms to indicate him.

"Christian, this is Ben."

As Ben held out his hand he thought he saw a flash of real recognition in Christian's eyes. Shannon might have seen it too, by what she said next.

"He's a friend of Tom's."

"Nice to meet you." Christian did seem pleased, not triumphant, the way Max had been, albeit playfully so. "Thanks for coming."

"It was my pleasure. I feel lucky to have seen your work before it's been written about in the papers."

"Oh, well. Thank you."

Ben allowed himself to fade into the background as he and Shannon talked about people and events that he could infer the nature of but didn't know, tuning back in only when they were parting. After she and Christian had done their strange little version of not quite a handshake, not quite a hug and he'd said goodbye she finished her drink and turned to him.

"I'm ready to go now."

"As am I." It was really just something to say. Her statement hadn't been a mere suggestion.

She walked quickly on the way back to the car, almost as if she were trying to get away without being seen, settling herself into her seat quickly, her belt already on by the time he had his door open.

"I don't want to go home," she blurted out as he got in.

"That's fine," he said slowly, thinking, trying to figure out if it was something he had done to make her uncomfortable there. The late hour was beginning to wear on him, and he felt the need to be careful. "Is it because Max saw us together?"

"No. I'm alright with that. I like Max, she's a good friend, I just don't know how many people will be in the flat, how many people will be up, if I'll have to be quiet or if I'll have to try to be sociable. I'm just not in the mood." She pushed her hair out of her face with one hand and held it against her forehead as she leaned back against the seat. "I've had a really long day. It's been a good day, but really, really long, and I just don't want to deal with that."

"Do you want to come to mine?" He knew, even as he offered, that it wasn't what she wanted, but he needed to ask.

"No." She was nearly whispering. "I want to go to Tom's."

"Then that's where we'll go." She still had her eyes closed, hand to her head, and he couldn't just drive off with her like that. "What's wrong?"

She opened her eyes and lowered her hand, turning her head to look at him. "I just got together with you this morning, I've spent the evening with you, you came all the way across the city to be with me and now I'm asking you to take me to my other boyfriend's place."

"It's the end of a long day, the beginning of the next morning, really, and you're asking me to take you to the place where you feel the most at home."

She nodded.

"I can't speak for Tom but I think if you asked him, he'd be pleased that you think of it as your home."

She pressed her lips together, thinking, then shook her head. "I can't, not quite yet."

Ben thought of his own flat, the prospect of giving it up the furthest thing from his mind even after he and Tom had finally hammered out the details of their relationship. "I get that. But the thing is, I love him too. I understand wanting to go there." Her hand was resting limp against the seat and he held it in his for a moment. "Shall we?"

She nodded, looking more comfortable once the car was moving.

On the way she seemed to brighten a bit, the conversation bouncing between films they'd both seen to books they thought would make good films, tangenting off to their various travels. She seemed to perk up even more when they got to Tom's street, even when they saw that the house was still dark.

"He had a late shoot," she said. "He might have gone to bed already."

"Or more likely he's not home yet," Ben pointed out. She let herself out, not waiting for him, and wound up at the front door at the same time as him, their keys clashing as they both tried to unlock the door.

"Sorry," he said, putting his keys in his pocket. "Go ahead."

She seemed shaken by that moment, somehow, but unlocked the door and ran up the stairs ahead of him, hanging her purse and her jacket just outside the main door. They both toed their shoes off on the mat, mirror images of each other's actions, and he realized this was the first time they'd both arrived at the same time.

Shannon slipped through the house silently without turning any lights on, a feat Ben would not have attempted due to the ever present specter of Louis' toys on the floor. She emerged unscathed, however, turning on a few lights as she came back towards the kitchen.

"He's definitely not here." She took down a tumbler and filled it at the sink, leaning on the worktop as she drank. "Did you want something to drink?"

"I'll have some water, actually." He took down a glass before she could reach for it and they stood on either side of the sink, drinking.

"I'm ready for bed, honestly," Shannon said, setting her cup in the sink. Ben did the same.

"Me too." He looked out the kitchen window, thinking of the short drive back to his house, the entirely silent state of it. "Listen, I have to ask you something. There is no wrong answer." He could feel, before he spoke, how the mere action of asking was itself a sort of coercion, but he couldn't let it go unsaid. "Can I stay here tonight?"

"It's not really for me to say."

"It is though. This is where you feel at home, and right now, even if it is not your home, it is, for this moment. I've got somewhere else I can go. I'd just rather stay with you right now." He thought of the seismic shift her life had taken in the last day. It was no less than his own, in a way, and yet it felt different, just thinking about it. He'd been fine with the idea of being polyamorous for a long while, even if he'd never acted on it. She'd embraced an idea and an action in rather short order, and if she needed her space, metaphorical or literal, he couldn't deny her that.

"I would like it if you stayed." She smiled. "If you think Tom won't be upset to come home to find the both of us in his bed."

"He'll be fine." Ben took out his phone. In all likelihood Tom wouldn't see a text until he was ready to come home, but he could at least warn him. 

Shannon walked over to Max’s crate as Ben sent his text. Max lifted his head and looked at her, then settled his chin on his paws again, giving a huge yawn before he closed his eyes.

“I was going to take him out but he doesn’t seem interested,” Shannon said, glancing up at Ben.

“It’s the middle of the night for him. The dog walker will have been here, maybe twice today, and ‘d bet Tom ran him this morning to tire him out. I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Sleep tight then,” Shannon said as she turned out the living room lights.

Getting ready for bed was another comedy of errors, similar to them trying to both put their keys in the lock at once. Half of the products Shannon had assumed were Tom's were really Ben's. Shannon's sleep wear was mixed with Tom's in the top drawer-- had Ben ever unfolded any of it he would have seen that it was far too small for Tom. Shannon did search around looking for a heavier top to wear to bed, and, not finding one of her own, took one of Tom's worn grey hoodies. Ben thought of saying something about her staking her claim to the man, then thought better of it.

"Do you want the outside of the bed?" she asked as she turned down the covers.

"It depends on how you sleep."

"On my right side. I don't mind if you're in front of me but I like something to lean on. That's why my bed is against the wall in my room."

"Then you take the edge and I'll be behind you."

Ben curled up on his side and Shannon leaned back on him just as she said she would, warm but not stifling in the cool room.

"This is nice," she said softly as she fell asleep. 

"It is." He held her left shoulder in his hand for a moment, squeezing. 

"Your hands are so big." She was almost definitely near sleep, the words indistinct and round.

"So I've been told." He kissed her shoulder, then closed his eyes, surprised even in that moment by how quickly sleep found him.

Unlike Shannon, he did wake up when Tom came home, ears pricking up when the front door slammed. He listened to Tom make his slow way through the house, pausing in the kitchen and the living room before finally coming into the bedroom, shedding clothes as he went. He was down to his pants and vest when he stood next to the bed, looking down at them.

"Hi," Ben said softly. "She's asleep."

"I can see that." Tom sounded amused. "You know, the two of you are taking up less room than you take up on your own."

Ben smiled up at him. "Shannon keeps me in line."

"Huh." Tom looked up at the ceiling, considering. "This might work out better than I'd ever dreamed." He wandered into the washroom without waiting for a response and Ben fell back asleep, fairly sure that Tom hadn't been kidding.

**Author's Note:**

> Find us [here](https://cumberhardhiddlesbitch.tumblr.com/) over at tumblr and say hey or ask questions or just look at our pretty, pretty boys.


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